This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection produces life-threatening disease in immunosuppressed individuals and is a frequent opportunistic pathogen in AIDS. However, mechanisms underlying CMV reactivation, factors that establish latency and persistent infection in immunocompetent hosts, and the natural history of CMV infection are not well characterized. Some of these questions are better addressed in animal models and we have established the rhesus macaque model of SIV infection to study the biology of CMV infection in AIDS. The goal of this project is to sequence the genome of a clinical isolate of rhesus CMV that was isolated from a macaque that died of AIDS. A library of overlapping cosmid clones of the rhesus CMV genome has been generated, and greater than 90 percent of the genome has been sequenced. Gene annotation carried out thus far reveals a high degree of sequence homology between the clinical isolate of rhCMV (180-92) and the ATCC strain of rhCMV (68-1) published previously. However, there are significant differences in a 22kb region (UL115-U56) which are being characterized. This project lays the foundation for future studies that precisely define the molecular pathogenesis of CMV infection in the rhesus macaque animal model of AIDS.
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