Abstract : Arenaviruses are enveloped viruses containing a segmented, negative and ambisense single‐stranded RNA genome wrapped with a nucleoprotein. The nucleoprotein is the most abundant viral protein in infected cells and plays a critical role in both replication/transcription and virion assembly. The nucleoprotein associates with RNA to form a ribonucleoprotein complex, and this implies self‐assembly while the exact structure of this polymer is not yet known. Here we report a measurement of the full length Mopeia virus NP by negative stain Transmission Electron Microscopy. We observed ribonucleoprotein complex particles with diameter 15 ± 1 nm as well as symmetric circular heptamers of the same diameter, consistent with previous observations.
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Submitted on : Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - 3:13:15 PM Last modification on : Wednesday, February 17, 2021 - 3:31:00 AM
Nicolas Papageorgiou, Afroditi Vaitsopoulou, Awa Diop, Thi van Nguyen, Bruno Canard, et al.. Observation of arenavirus nucleoprotein heptamer assembly. FEBS Open Bio, Wiley Open Access/Elsevier, 2021, ⟨10.1002/2211-5463.13106⟩. ⟨hal-03143071⟩