Human cytomegalovirus

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a ubiquitous member of the ?-herpesvirus family. Although HCMV infection of healthy children and adults is usually asymptomatic, it is a leading cause of birth defects and a major cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised individuals.

In a collaboration with Dr. Tom Shenk at Princeton University, we have sequenced and finished six strains of human cytomegalovirus. These include two laboratory strains (AD169 and Towne) that have been extensively passaged in fibroblasts and four clinical isolates that have been passaged to a limited extent in the laboratory (Toledo, FIX, PH, and TR). All of the sequenced viral genomes have been cloned as infectious bacterial artificial chromosomes.

A total of 252 ORFs with the potential to encode proteins have been identified that are conserved in all four clinical isolates of the virus. Multiple sequence alignments revealed substantial variation in the amino acid sequences encoded by many of the conserved ORFs.