VIGOR extended to annotate genomes for additional 12 different viruses

Wang, Shiliang; Sundaram, Jaideep P.; Stockwell, Timothy B.

Rubella virus is the sole member of genus Rubivirus in family Togaviridae. It is a single-stranded, positive sense RNA virus. The genome size is 9.8 kb with two genes encoded. The infections of rubella virus in pregnant women often result in severe defects in the embryos known as congenial rubella syndromes (28, 29) . The first gene encodes a large non-structural protein, which is cleaved into two mature peptides (P150 and P90) required in RNA replication. The second gene encodes a structural protein, which is cleaved into three mature peptides, the capsid protein (C) and two envelope glycoproteins (E1 and E2) (30) . In order to identify the exact cleavage sites for the mature peptides, a mature peptide database of rubella virus was created. The polyproteins were BLASTed against the mature peptide database to locate the mature peptide regions. Conserved signature residues and alignment are used to find the exact cleavage sites. The conserved cleavage residues in the non-structural protein are Ser-Arg-Gly#Gly-Gly (31) .