Genomic changes associated with antigenic variation of visna virus durig persistent infection.

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Abstract
Visna virus undergoes antigenic change during persistent infection of sheep. Antigenic variants of visna virus were compared by using the genomic RNA and analyzing the large RNase T1-resistant oligonucleotides. Mutants isolated from a persistently infected sheep contained a small number of changes in their oligonucleotide patterns when compared with parental virus. To discover whether the changes in the nucleotide structure were clustered in 1 region of the genome, the order of the oligonucleotides of the parental and mutant RNA along the genome with respect to the 3'' polyadenylylated end was determined. All but 1 difference between the parental strain and the antigenic mutant used for mapping were located within 2 kilobases from the 3'' terminus. Nucleotide sequence analyses showed that several of the oligonucleotides that differed in the parental and mutant RNA could be accounted for by single base changes.