Three African swine fever virus genes encoding proteins with homology to putative helicases of vaccinia virus.

Sequence analysis of the SalI g, h, i and j restriction fragments of the African swine fever virus (ASFV) genome from the virulent isolate Malawi (LIL20/1) identified three open reading frames (ORFs) encoding predicted proteins of 125.0K (g10L), 80.4K (j10L) and 58.0K (j11L) which showed homology to members of the DNA and RNA helicase superfamily. ORFj10L was related to protein 4 of the Kluyveromyces lactis killer plasmid pKG12 and to two putative helicases, D6R and D11L, of vaccinia virus. ORF g10L was most closely related to ASFVj10L and to vaccinia virus D11L. ORFj11L was homologous to A18R, a third putative helicase of vaccinia virus. The possible functions of these genes in the replication of ASFV are discussed and the evolutionary implications are considered.