Interstrain Variation in the Human Cytomegalovirus DNA Polymerase Sequence and Its Effect on Genotypic Diagnosis of Antiviral Drug Resistance

Abstract

The polymerase (pol) coding sequence was determined for 40 independent clinical cytomegalovirus isolates sensitive to ganciclovir and foscarnet. Sequence alignments showed >98% interstrain homology and amino acid variation in only 4% of the 1, 237 codons. Almost all variation occurred outside of conserved functional domains where resistance mutations have been identified.