%0 Journal Article
%T Characterization of the duck enteritis virus UL55 protein
%A Ying Wu
%A Anchun Cheng
%A Mingshu Wang
%A Shunchuan Zhang
%A Dekang Zhu
%A Renyong Jia
%A Qihui Luo
%A Zhengli Chen
%A Xiaoyue Chen
%J Virology Journal
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1743-422x-8-256
%X The newly identified duck enteritis virus UL55 gene was about 561 bp, it was amplified and digested for construction of a recombinant plasmid pET32a(+)/UL55 for expression in Escherichia coli. SDS-PAGE analysis revealed the recombinant protein UL55(pUL55) was overexpressed in Escherichia coli BL21 host cells after induction by 0.2 mM IPTG at 37ˇăC for 4 h and aggregated as inclusion bodies. The denatured protein about 40 KDa named pUL55 was purified by washing five times, and used to immune rabbits for preparation of polyclonal antibody. The prepared polyclonal antibody against pUL55 was detected and determined by Agar immundiffusion and Neutralization test. The results of Wstern blotting assay and intracellular analysis revealed that pUL55 was expressed most abundantly during the late phase of replication and mainly distributed in cytoplasm in duck enteritis virus infected cells.In this study, the duck enteritis virus UL55 protein was successfully expressed in prokaryotic expression system. Besides, we have prepared the polyclonal antibody against recombinant prtein UL55, and characterized some properties of the duck enteritis virus UL55 protein for the first time. The research will be useful for further functional analysis of this gene.Duck enteritis virus (DEV), alternatively known as Duck plague virus (DPV), is a fatal pathogen of the family Anatidae of the order anseriformes[1], leading to an acute, febrile, contagious, and septic disease to waterfowls of all ages. The resulting disease designated as duck virus enteritis (DVE) has caused serious losses in commercial duck production in domestic and wild waterfowl since it was firstly discovered in Netherlands[2]. To our knowledge, DEV has been clustered to the subfamily of alphaherpesvirinae according to the report of the Eighth International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV)[3]. However, it has not been classified to any genus yet.The genome of DEV is composed of a linear, double stranded DNA. In recent ye
%U http://www.virologyj.com/content/8/1/256