Figure 1.

N increases the expression of reporter proteins. HeLa cells were transfected with a constant amount of reporter plasmid and increasing amounts of a plasmid expressing hantavirus N. Evaluation of N expression on western blots with anti-N antibody indicated that N expression increased along with increasing amounts of plasmid, as expected (not shown). At 36 h after transfection, cells were harvested and GFP or luc expression was quantified, by flow cytometry or enzymatically, respectively (dark bars). (A) Expression of GFP is shown. (B) luc as a function of increasing N is shown. Steady-state GFP mRNA and luc mRNA were quantified using ‘real-time' RT–PCR with primers specific for a segment in the centre of each reporter RNA. In both (A, B), the results of this latter analysis are depicted with light bars.