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Hepatitis C virus core protein is a dimeric alpha-helical protein exhibiting membrane protein features.

ABSTRACT: The building block of hepatitis C virus (HCV) nucleocapsid, the core protein, together with viral RNA, is composed of different domains involved in RNA binding and homo-oligomerization. The HCV core protein 1-169 (C(HCV)169) and its N-terminal region from positions 1 to 117 (C(HCV)117) were expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity suitable for biochemical and biophysical characterizations. The overall conformation and the oligomeric properties of the resulting proteins C(HCV)169 and C(HCV)117 were investigated by using analytical centrifugation, circular dichroism, intrinsic fluorescence measurements, and limited proteolysis. Altogether, our results show that core protein (C(HCV)169) behaves as a membranous protein and forms heterogeneous soluble micelle-like aggregates of high molecular weight in the absence of detergent. In contrast, it behaves, in the presence of mild detergent, as a soluble, well-folded, noncovalent dimer. Similar to findings observed for core proteins of HCV-related flaviviruses, the HCV core protein is essentially composed of alpha-helices (50%). In contrast, C(HCV)117 is soluble and monodispersed in the absence of detergent but is unfolded. It appears that the folding of the highly basic domain from positions 2 to 117 (2-117 domain) depends on the presence of the 117-169 hydrophobic domain, which contains the structural determinants ensuring the binding of core with cellular membranes. Finally, our findings provide valuable information for further investigations on isolated core protein, as well as for attempts to reconstitute nucleocapsid particles in vitro.

SUBMITTER: Boulant S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1193582 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Hepatitis C virus core protein is a dimeric alpha-helical protein exhibiting membrane protein features.

Boulant Steeve S Vanbelle Christophe C Ebel Christine C Penin François F Lavergne Jean-Pierre JP

Journal of virology 20050901 17

The building block of hepatitis C virus (HCV) nucleocapsid, the core protein, together with viral RNA, is composed of different domains involved in RNA binding and homo-oligomerization. The HCV core protein 1-169 (C(HCV)169) and its N-terminal region from positions 1 to 117 (C(HCV)117) were expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity suitable for biochemical and biophysical characterizations. The overall conformation and the oligomeric properties of the resulting proteins C(HCV)169 ...[more]

PMID: 16103187

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Project description:BackgroundIn genomics and proteomics, membrane protein analysis have shown that such analyses are very important to support the understanding of complex biological processes. In Genome-wide investigations of membrane proteins a large number of short, distinct sequence motifs has been revealed. Such motifs found so far support the understanding of the folded membrane protein in the membrane environment. They provide important information about functional or stabilizing properties. Recently several integrative approaches have been proposed to extract meaningful information out of the membrane environment. However, many information based approaches deliver results having deficits of visualisation outputs. Outgoing from high-throughput protein data analysis, these outputs play an important role in the evaluation of high-dimensional protein data, to establish a biological relationship and ultimately to provide useful information for research.ResultsWe have evaluated different resulting graphs generated from statistical analysis of consecutive motifs in helical structures of the membrane environment. Our results show that representative motifs with high occurrence in all investigated protein families are responsible for the general importance in alpha-helical membrane structure formation. Further, motifs which often occur with others in their function as so called "hubs" lead to the assumption, that these motifs constitute as important components in helical structures within the membrane. Otherwise, consecutive motifs and hubs which show a high occurrence in certain families only can be classified as important for family-specific functional characteristics. Summarized, we are able to bridge our graphical results from high-throughput analysis of membrane proteins over networking with databases to a biological context.ConclusionsOur results and the corresponding graphical visualisation support the understanding and interpretation of structure forming and functional motifs of membrane proteins. Our results are useful to interpret and refine results of common developed approaches. At last we show a simple way to visualise high-dimensional protein data in context to biological relevant information.

Dataset Information

Hepatitis C virus core protein is a dimeric alpha-helical protein exhibiting membrane protein features.

Publications

Hepatitis C virus core protein is a dimeric alpha-helical protein exhibiting membrane protein features.

Similar Datasets

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