Asinine herpesvirus genomes: comparison with those of the equine herpesviruses

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Abstract
Two previously unknown and distinct herpesviruses were isolated from donkeys. One, with the characteristics of a betaherpesvirus, was isolated from the leukocytes of an apparently healthy donkey, while the second, an alphaherpesvirus, was recovered from the nasal cavity of donkeys given high doses of corticosteroids, and caused rhinitis in two seronegative weanling donkeys when they were intranasally infected. Few, if any, restriction endonuclease fragments were shared by the donkey betaherpesvirus, equine herpesvirus 2 (EHV2) or EHV5, a second distinctly different equine betaherpesvirus, nor by the donkey alphaherpesvirus, EHV1, EHV4, or EHV3. In Southern blot analysis the donkey betaherpesvirus showed low levels of sequence similarity to both EHV2 and EHV5, while the donkey alphaherpesvirus and EHV1 shared a moderate degree of sequence similarity, less similarity with EHV4 and very low level of sequence similarity with EHV3. These two isolates appear prototypic of two previously unrecorded herpesviruses for which the names asinine herpesvirus 2 and 3 are suggested for the betaherpesvirus and the alphaherpesvirus respectively.