African swine fever virus DNA: deletions and additions during adaptation to growth in monkey kidney cells

Abstract

Restriction enzyme cleavage maps for the fragments produced by Cla I, Sal I and Sma I have been constructed for African swine fever virus (ASFV) DNA grown in pig leukocytes (strain E70 L6) and after adaptation to growth in MS monkey kidney cells (strain E70MS14). The mapping data revealed that before adaptation to growth in MS cells, the size of the DNA from ASFV strain E70 L6 was l73 Kbp and after adaptation it was only l56 Kbp. The decrease in size was produced by deletions and additions mainly in the terminal regions of the genome. These genetic variations were located between 0.0 to 0.01 m.u. (Cla I-M1 fragment), 0.04 to 0.14 m.u. (Sma I-B1, Sal I-A1 fragments), 0.51 to 0.52 m.u. (Cla I-O fragment), 0.84 to 0.86 m.u. (Sma I-H1), 0.95 to 0.97 m.u. (Cla I-A1, Cla I-G1 fragments) and 0.99 to 1.0 m.u. (Cla I-G1) on viral genome of ASFV grown in pig leukocytes.