The A and B Subgroups of Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus: Comparison of Intergenic and Gene-overlap Sequences

Abstract
Intergenic and flanking gene regions for the 1C-1B, Ib-N, N-P, M-1A, G-F and F-22K gene junctions of respiratory syncytial virus strain 18537, representing antigenic subgroup B, were determined by dideoxynucleotide sequencing of polycistronic cDNAs and mRNAs. Comparison with their counterparts from the subgroup A strain A2 showed that the intergenic sequences were not conserved within or between the strains. Flanking non-coding gene sequences also were generally not conserved except for the highly conserved gene-start and gene-end transcription signals. The sequence of the overlap between the 22K and L genes was conserved almost exactly between the two subgroups.