Summary.
Despite of highly divergent genome organizations, the N terminus of nonstructural protein 3 (NS3) is highly conserved between cytopathogenic (cp) bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) strains. Generation of NS3, often by NS2-3 cleavage, is a marker of cp BVDV. The significance of the cleavage site within NS2-3 for viral replication was addressed by the use of BVDV replicons. Our results demonstrate that elongation as well as truncation of NS3 strongly interfere with viral RNA replication. This finding strongly suggests that the observed conservation of the N terminus of NS3 between cp BVDV is caused by functional selection and not by the presence of a hotspot of recombination.
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Received January 23, 2003; accepted March 7, 2003 Published online May 5, 2003
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Tautz, N., Thiel, HJ. Cytopathogenicity of pestiviruses: cleavage of bovine viral diarrhea virus NS2-3 has to occur at a defined position to allow viral replication. Arch Virol 148, 1405–1412 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-003-0106-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-003-0106-9