Varicella Zoster Virus Promoter Sequences

The human herpes viruses control the expression of their genes during viral growth in a tightly regulated fashion. and the major factor in this control is believed to be the use of specific promoter elements. To develop an understanding of how varicella zoster virus VZV regulates its growth cycle, we have experimentally defined the promoters for three different classes of VZV genes. By characterizing the sequences upstream from the transcriptional start site of each gene, the functional promoter regions have been identified. For gpV a late gene, a 580 base pair fragment of VZV DNA was cloned upstream from a reporter gene, and subsequent mutational analysis showed that a short sequence containing the TATA box TTTAAATT is sufficient for promoter activity, although it s much weaker than the equivalent promoter for its homologue, herpes simplex virus gC TATAAATT . We suggest that the genomic environment, as well as the nucleotide sequence, is important for this promoter function.