Investigation of DNA Sequences Related to Latency-Associated Transcripts in the Genome of Canine Herpesvirus Type 1 (CHV-1) by Means of Bioinformatics Tools

A characteristic common to herpesviruses is the ability to establish a latent infection in the hosts, a transcriptionally active region has detected during latency as well as a set of RNA that are known as Latency Associated Transcripts (LATs), their functions have been clarified in recent work. The present work was carried using different bioinformatics method in order to determine if Herpesvirus Canine 1 (CHV-1) has a region associated with latency. Our result was the selection of nine sequences candidate of micro RNA (miRNA) (MIREval 2.0 software), and 26 miRNA (miRNAFold v.1.0 software), of them, were selected 14 with real precursors of miRNA, two were found between the RL2 and RS1 genes, one in the RL2 gene and 11 in the RS1 gene. The results showed that the similarities of these regions are very low among the herpesviruses analyzed, so it was not possible to deduce the presence of the LAT gene in canine herpesvirus type 1 with bioinformatics. On the other hand, the comparison showed that the miRNA predicted: chv1-mir-mirnafold-8 has similarity with the ebv-mir-BART7-3p of Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), in this way, the microRNAs predicted by means of bioinformatic programs met the theoretical requirements of these molecules, however at not having a degree of preservation in other herpesviruses, the expression by CHV-1 in latency cannot be confirmed and it is necessary to identify through experimental tests.