Cleavage specificity of the UL48 deubiquitinating protease activity of human cytomegalovirus and the growth of an active-site mutant virus in cultured cells.

The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) open reading frame UL48 encodes a 253-kDa tegument protein that is closely associated with the capsid and was recently shown to have ubiquitin-specific protease activity (J. Wang, A. N.