Analyses of Coronavirus Assembly Interactions with Interspecies Membrane and Nucleocapsid Protein Chimeras.

ABSTRACT:

Unlabelled

The coronavirus membrane (M) protein is the central actor in virion morphogenesis. M organizes the components of the viral membrane, and interactions of M with itself and with the nucleocapsid (N) protein drive virus assembly and budding. In order to further define M-M and M-N interactions, we constructed mutants of the model coronavirus mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) in which all or part of the M protein was replaced by its phylogenetically divergent counterpart from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV). We were able to obtain viable chimeras containing the entire SARS-CoV M protein as well as mutants with intramolecular substitutions that partitioned M protein at the boundaries between the ectodomain, transmembrane domains, or endodomain. Our results s

SUBMITTER: Kuo L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4836358 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature