Figure 1. Schematic representation of P protein and the P3 proteins used in this study.

P3 is an N-terminally truncated isoform of P protein comprising residues 53–297, which is generated in infected cells by ribosomal leaky scanning that results in translation from an internal AUG codon corresponding to M₅₃ (arrow) of the full length P protein (called P1)¹⁰. The CTD (containing the MT, N-RNA and STAT1 binding regions) and NTR (containing the dimerization domain) are indicated; residue positions are indicated beneath the P1 protein. Residues at positions 56, 58, 66, 81 and 226 differ between P3 from the pathogenic (Ni) and attenuated (Ni-CE) strains of RABV (substitutions in Ni-CE-P3 are in red).