Citation

  • Authors: Welke RW. et al.
  • Year: 2022
  • Journal: Viruses 14 457
  • Applications: in vitro / DNA / jetOPTIMUS
  • Cell types:
    1. Name: A549
      Description: Human lung carcinoma cells, type II pneumocytes
      Known as: A-549
    2. Name: HEK-293T
      Description: Human embryonic kidney Fibroblast
      Known as: HEK293T, 293T
    3. Name: MGLU-2-R
    4. Name: MGN-2-R

Method

All cell lines other than CHO-K1 (Figure S2) were seeded in a standard 12-well tissue culture plate on 18 mm glass cover slips. The cells were seeded at a density of 150.000 cells per well and cultivated in DMEM with 10 % fetal calf serum. After 24h, the cells were transfected with 1 µg plasmid DNA per well using jetOptimus (Polyplus) transfection reagent. The cells were further incubated for 24h, then fixed, stained and mounted on microcopy glass slides.

Abstract

Hantaviruses are enveloped viruses that possess a tri-segmented, negative-sense RNA genome. The viral S-segment encodes the multifunctional nucleocapsid protein (N), which is involved in genome packaging, intracellular protein transport, immunoregulation, and several other crucial processes during hantavirus infection. In this study, we generated fluorescently tagged N protein constructs derived from Puumalavirus (PUUV), the dominant hantavirus species in Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe. We comprehensively characterized this protein in the rodent cell line CHO-K1, monitoring the dynamics of N protein complex formation and investigating co-localization with host proteins as well as the viral glycoproteins Gc and Gn. We observed formation of large, fibrillar PUUV N protein aggregates, rapidly coalescing from early punctate and spike-like assemblies. Moreover, we found significant spatial correlation of N with vimentin, actin, and P-bodies but not with microtubules. N constructs also co-localized with Gn and Gc albeit not as strongly as the glycoproteins associated with each other. Finally, we assessed oligomerization of N constructs, observing efficient and concentration-dependent multimerization, with complexes comprising more than 10 individual proteins.

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