2021-04-30: Incorporation of equine HBV - a newly discovered hepadnavirus
Recent work has identified a novel hepadnavirus that occurs globally in donkeys and zebras. Equine hepatatis B virus (EqHBV) causes a hepatotropic disease comparable to that caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV) in humans.
The identification of EqHBV in zebras and donkeys offers unique opportunities for comparative studies of hepadnaviruses.
To incorporate EqHBV into Hepadnaviridae-GLUE, we first needed to virtually rotate' the circular genome so that it uses the same start position as the other HBV reference sequences in our project.
For historical reasons, most hepadnavirus sequences are published with a genome start position established in the early days of HBV sequencing. However, this start is located internally within the coding genome, rather than at the transcriptional 'start'. In Hepadnaviridae-GLUE, reference sequences have been adjusted so that they start immediately upstream of the Core gene. The process is implemented in this script.
Note: GLUE's scripting layer is based on JavaScript.
2021-03-15: Hepadnavirus-GLUE project published
Hepadnavirus-GLUE is the second broadly-scoped GLUE project to be published by the Gifford lab as part of the DIGS-for-EVEs initiative.