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Journal of Virology logoLink to Journal of Virology
. 1997 Jun;71(6):4264–4271. doi: 10.1128/jvi.71.6.4264-4271.1997

Expression and purification of vesicular stomatitis virus N-P complex from Escherichia coli: role in genome RNA transcription and replication in vitro.

A K Gupta 1, A K Banerjee 1
PMCID: PMC191641  PMID: 9151813

Abstract

The nucleocapsid protein (N) and phosphoprotein (P) genes of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), Indiana serotype, were coexpressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) by using the expression vector pET-3a. The coexpression resulted in the formation of N-P complex. The purified N-P complex was found to inhibit transcription in vitro mediated by viral ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex in a dose-dependent manner. However, addition of uninfected mammalian cell extracts together with the N-P complex to the transcribing RNP resulted in the synthesis of full-length negative-strand genome RNA. These results indicate that the N-P complex regulated transcription and a cellular factor(s) in combination with the N-P complex may switch the RNA polymerase from transcription to replication mode.

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Selected References

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