Nucleoprotein

General information on Nucleoprotein

Nucleoprotein have been defined as proteins that are structurally associated with DNA or RNA. Nucleoprotein may include nucleosomes, ribosomes and nucleocapsid proteins. In the viral particle, nucleoprotein is involved in grouping the positive strand of the viral RNA. Furthermore, nucleoprotein is essential for virion assembly. These proteins also enhance subgenomic viral RNA transcription efficiency and viral replication.
The nucleoproteins are present in coronaviruses which can cause coronavirus disease (COVID). In humans, coronaviruses affect respiratory epithelial cells which causes respiratory tract infections. The nucleoprotein is located in the cytoplasm and uniformly throughout the subnuclear and the nucleolus of the infected cells. It has been implicated in several functions ranging from the formation of the viral core to virus translation, transcription and replication. Coronavirus nucleoproteins are implicated in both virus-infected primary cells and cells transfected with the plasmid express nucleoproteins protein.
The nucleolus of the coronavirus-infected cells have impaired cell-growth cycle. The viral protein interreacts with fibrillarin and nucleolin. Nucleolin and fibrillarin are both major components of nucleolus. Fibrillarin protein is responsible for ribosome assembly and is essential for cell cycle regulation. It has been suggested that the interaction between nucleoprotein and fibrillarin affects ribosomal biogenesis and eases viral mRNA translation. Furthermore, it is believed that the interaction between fibrillarin, nucleolin and the viral nucleoprotein delays cytokinesis of the host cells and block the cell cycle at interphase phase. This allows the virus to translate as much viral mRNAs as possible.
At ProteoGenix, we provide the nucleoprotein found in coronavirus disease 2019 also known as COVID-19 which is responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 is highly infectious disease spread between people, mammals and birds during close contact or via small droplets.