Artigo Acesso aberto Revisado por pares

Human monkeypox and smallpox viruses: genomic comparison

2001; Wiley; Volume: 509; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0014-5793(01)03144-1

ISSN

1873-3468

Autores

С. Н. Щелкунов, Totmenin Av, Igor V. Babkin, Pavel F. Safronov, Olga I. Ryazankina, Nikolai A. Petrov, В. В. Гуторов, Е. А. Уварова, Maxim Mikheev, Jerry R. Sisler, Joseph J. Esposito, Peter B. Jahrling, Bernard Moss, L. S. Sandakhchiev,

Tópico(s)

Herpesvirus Infections and Treatments

Resumo

Monkeypox virus (MPV) causes a human disease which resembles smallpox but with a lower person-to-person transmission rate. To determine the genetic relationship between the orthopoxviruses causing these two diseases, we sequenced the 197-kb genome of MPV isolated from a patient during a large human monkeypox outbreak in Zaire in 1996. The nucleotide sequence within the central region of the MPV genome, which encodes essential enzymes and structural proteins, was 96.3% identical with that of variola (smallpox) virus (VAR). In contrast, there were considerable differences between MPV and VAR in the regions encoding virulence and host-range factors near the ends of the genome. Our data indicate that MPV is not the direct ancestor of VAR and is unlikely to naturally acquire all properties of VAR.

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