Amino acid differences in capsid protein, VP1, between diabetogenic and nondiabetogenic variants of encephalomyocarditis virus

The genes for the major capsid protein, VP1(1D), of both diabetogenic D variant (EMC-D) and nondiabetogenic B variant (EMC-B) of encephalomyocarditis virus were cloned by using two synthetic primers which are common to both EMC-D and EMC-B. The cloned genes were mapped for major restriction enzyme sites including AccI, BamHI, EcoRI, HincII, KpnI, PvuII, SstI, TaqI, and XbaI. Among those nine restriction enzyme sites, only the TaqI site distinguished EMC-D genome from the counterpart of EMC-B genome. The complete nucleotide sequences (831 bases) of the VP1 genes revealed five amino acid differences between the two variants. Three of the changes, at positions 41, 58, and 152, were Thr (EMC-B) to Ala (EMC-D). The additional two changes occurred at positions 63 Gln (EMC-B) to Glu (EMC-D)] and 181 Thr (EMC-B) to Ser (EMC-D)]. All of these amino acid changes were due to point mutations at the first base of each codon.