Nucleotide sequence analysis of a 10.5 kbp HindIII fragment of fowlpox virus: relatedness to the central portion of the vaccinia virus HindIII D region

The nucleotide sequence of a 10465 bp HindIII genomic fragment from fowlpox virus (FPV) is presented. Analysis of the nucleotide sequence revealed 10 potential major open reading frames (ORFs). Five of these ORFs are predicted to encode polypeptides with significant homology to hypothetical polypeptides derived from nucleotide sequence analysis of the vaccinia virus (VV) HindIII D region. Interestingly, these homologous ORFs do not occur in the same tandem arrangement in the FPV genome as they do in the VV genome. These results are discussed.