Cloning of Major Capsid Protein Gene of Pseudorabies Virus and Expression by Baculovirus Vector System

Pseudorabies Virus의 Major Capsid Protein 유전자의 클론닝과 Baculovirus Vector System에 의한 발현

Pseudorabies is caused by Pseudorabies virus (PRV: Aujeszky's disease virus) of Herpesviridae that is characterized by 100 to 150nm in size with a linear double-stranded DNA molecule with of approximately $90{\times}10^6Da$. This disease affects most of domestic animals such as swine, cattle, dog, sheep, cat, chicken, etc. causing high mortality and economic losses. In swine, young piglets show high mortality and pregnant sows, reproductive failures. However the adult swine reveals no clinical signs in general. But they become a carrier state and play an important role for propagation of the disease. In this study, the nucleotide sequence of major casid protein gene of PRV, Yangsan strain isolated from the diseased swine in Korea was analyzed, and the recombinant MCP was produced by expression of the MCP gene in Sf-9 cell using baculovirus transfer vector system. As result, in BamHI digestion, MCP gene locus of PRV YS strain showed different from that of Indiana S strain. The patterns of enzyme mapping were also found to be unidentical each other. The sequence of the MCP gene partially analyzed showed 98.09% identity to Indiana S strain. The expression of MCP in Sf-9 cell cotransfected by pVLMCP-44 baculovirus expression vector was characterized by Southern blot hybridization, immunofluoresent and immunocytochemical tests, SDS-PAGE and Western blotting. The rMCP with M.W. 142kDa was most effectively expressed in Sf-9 cells at the 3-4th days post inoculation of the recombinant baculovirus by 2 moi.