Journal article
Koala and Wombat Gammaherpesviruses Encode the First Known Viral NTPDase Homologs and Are Phylogenetically Divergent from All Known Gammaherpesviruses
Paola K Vaz, Carol A Hartley, Sang-Yong Lee, Fiona M Sansom, Timothy E Adams, Kathryn Stalder, Lesley Pearce, George Lovrecz, Glenn F Browning, Christa E Mueller, Joanne M Devlin
JOURNAL OF VIROLOGY | AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY | Published : 2019
DOI: 10.1128/JVI.01404-18
Abstract
There is a large taxonomic gap in our understanding of mammalian herpesvirus genetics and evolution corresponding to those herpesviruses that infect marsupials, which diverged from eutherian mammals approximately 150 million years ago (mya). We compare the genomes of two marsupial gammaherpesviruses, Phascolarctid gammaherpesvirus 1 (PhaHV1) and Vombatid gammaherpesvirus 1 (VoHV1), which infect koalas (Phascolarc tos cinereus) and wombats (Vombatus ursinus), respectively. The core viral genomes were approximately 117 kbp and 110 kbp in length, respectively, sharing 69% pairwise nucleotide sequence identity. Phylogenetic analyses showed that PhaHV1 and VoHV1 formed a separate branch, which ma..
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Funding Acknowledgements
Paola K. Vaz was supported by the Victoria state government through a 2016 Victoria Fellowship, and further funding for this study was provided by the Australian government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy.