Partial transcription maps of equine infectious anemia virus genomes
Donkey leukocyte attenuated EIAV and donkey adapted EIAV were inoculated into the donkey primary macrophage culture and a healthy donkey respectively, transcription products of the two virus strains were analyzed in vitro and in vivo. By comparing the sequences of the genomes of these transcripts, transcription maps of the viruses were determined. The exons of these transcripts and the positions of these exons in corresponding genomes were also determined by experiments in this study. The positions of 3^ splicing acceptor of exon-3(SA2) of these two strains were different from other strains reported previously. The splicing signals were also unique in reported EIAV strains. Because of the significance of the splicing event in the replication of the virus, it suggested these characters might correlate to the biological divergence of the two viruses.