CLONING AND EXPRESSION OF BLUETONGUE VIRUS VP7 PROTEIN UPPER DOMAIN IN PROKARYOTIC SYSTEM
G.Sudheerbabu, Y.Narasimha Reddy, K.Dhanalaxmi
Abstract
Bluetongue (BT) is an infectious non-contagious viral disease of ruminants mainly confined to sheep, caused by Blue tongue virus belongs to Reoviridae. It comprises of 10 segmented ds-RNA, each encodes for specific structural or non structural proteins. Among the structural proteins VP7 is an important protein which is a group specific antigen and highly conserved in all the known serotypes. Keeping this in consideration present study was conducted on expression of upper domain of VP7 of BTV. This BTV VP7 UD gene was amplified by RT-PCR and was cloned and expressed with pQE-30 vector in E.coli M15 cells. The protein was expressed by 1mM IPTG and was estimated by 12%SDS-PAGE with expected molecular weight at 14.9K.Da. The recombinant VP7UD was further analysed by using western blot, which failed to detect naïve blue tongue virus.