FIG 1.
Construction of wild-type or mutant K1 recombinant viruses. (A) Schematic diagram of WT K1 and mutant K1 genes. The gray bar represents a FLAG epitope tag, and each star represents a stop codon. (B) PFGE analysis of KpnI-digested DNA of BAC16 and its derivatives. DNAs of WT KSHV (BAC16) and its derivatives KSHV-K1FLAG, KSHV-K15×STOP, KSHV-K1REV, and KSHVΔK1 were digested with KpnI and analyzed by PFGE. The 29.7-kb fragment is the result of replacing the original WT K1 gene with FLAG-tagged K1 and the presence of an additional KpnI site in the FLAG-tagged K1 gene compared to the WT K1 gene. The 33.2-kb fragment in the KSHVΔK1 virus is due to the replacement of the K1 ORF with the Kan-Neo (RpsL-Neo) cassette.