Fig 2.

Effects of insertions in TM1. Huh7 cells were transiently transfected with the indicated constructs (Fig. 1) or mock transfected (m). HBsAg levels from cell lysates (left panels) and culture supernatants (right panels) are indicated as percentage of the S protein with hemagglutinin (HA) tag (H) (standard deviations from 4 experiments are indicated). Western blots from cell lysates and culture supernatants from one of the four experiments are shown. (A) Effect of insertion of one amino acid in TM1 on intracellular expression levels and protein release into the culture supernatant. (B) Phenotypic characterization of mutants M1 and M2. (C) Transdominant negative effect of the central insertion in TM1 on the release of coexpressed S protein. Numbers at the right indicate the positions and molecular masses of size marker proteins.