Figure 3.

MoRF-containing fragments of HCV 2a Core protein mediate interactions with cellular proteins. (A) Yeast two-hybrid screening was used to identify cellular binding partners of HCV Core protein. The fragments used in Y2H screening (black bars, below) contain individual predicted α-MoRFs (grey blocks). Numbers indicate residue positions defining predicted α-MoRFs and Y2H fragments. Three cellular binding partners were found for each Core fragment (ovals). (B) Four of the six interactions were confirmed by split-luciferase assay. *, **, *** indicate P < 0.05, <0.005, and <0.0005, respectively, based on a one-tailed t-test (n = 3). The amounts of N-FLuc and C-FLuc fusion proteins were normalized to their respective GFP negative controls (Supporting Information Fig. S1).