Protein p22 of African swine fever virus: an early structural protein that is incorporated into the membrane of infected cells

Abstract

The open reading frame K'177, located at the left end of the African swine fever virus genome, codes for an early induced structural protein of 22,000 Da (p22), which is released from the viral particle by the nonionic detergent n-octyl-beta-D-glucopyranoside under conditions that solubilize external viral structural proteins. The predicted amino acid sequence of the protein contains a hydrophobic region at its N-terminus with characteristics of a signal peptide and, at early times after virus infection of Vero cells, the protein can be detected in the cell membrane by immunolabeling.