EBOLA VIRUS NUCLEOPROTEIN (NP) (ZAIRE)

Ebola Virus Nucleoprotein (NP) (Zaire) is a recombinant protein expressed and purified from E. coli.

PRODUCT DETAILS – EBOLA VIRUS NUCLEOPROTEIN (NP) (ZAIRE)

• Recombinant Ebola Virus Nucleoprotein (NP) (Zaire) C-terminus, expressed and purified from E. coli.
• Greater than 95% purity by SDS-PAGE and presented in phosphate buffered saline with 0.02% sodium azide.
• For immunoassay with high specificity and sensitivity.

BACKGROUND

Ebola and Marburg viruses are both filamentous, enveloped, non-segmented, negative-stranded RNA viruses of the family Filoviridae in the order Mononegavirales (Curran and Kolakofsky, 1999; Sanchez et al., 2001). Ebola virus particles comprise seven structural proteins of which four (nucleoprotein (NP), VP35, VP30, and the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (L)) are components of the ribonucleoprotein complex that is responsible for viral genome replication. Glycoprotein (GP), VP40, and VP24 are membrane-associated proteins and VP24 is believed to be involved in nucleocapsid formation.

Ebola virus NP is the largest nucleoprotein of the non-segmented negative-stranded RNA viruses (739 amino acid residues) and can be divided into a N-terminal hydrophobic region (approximately 350 amino acids) and a C-terminal hydrophilic region (Watanabe et al., 2006). The antigenic regions on the NPs of Ebola and Marburg viruses are located on the C-terminal regions of the virus genomes. The C-terminal 110 and 102 amino acids of the NPs of Ebola virus and Marburg virus, respectively, possess strong antigenicity (Saijo et al., 2001). The nucleoprotein gene is located proximal to the 3′ end of the genome and is preceded by a putative leader sequence (Sanchez et al., 1989). O glycosylation and sialylation of NP is required for its interaction with VP35, and may be important for viral genome replication. The Zaire Ebola virus NP RNA complex has been described at near-atomic resolution using C-terminally truncated protein (residues 1−450) in a human cell line in which it sequestered cellular RNA and assembled it into a rigid helix indistinguishable from the viral nucleocapsid core (Sugita et al., 2018).

Despite the fact that severe hemorrhagic fever caused by Ebola virus is associated with extremely high mortality rates in human and nonhuman primates, an effective vaccine or antiviral drug is still to be developed. Ebola virus NP-specific CTLs have been shown to protect mice following vaccination, inducing antibodies to both the NP and a major histocompatibility complex class I-restricted CTL response to an 11-amino-acid sequence in the amino-terminal portion of NP (Wilson and Hart, 2001). This Ebola Virus Nucleoprotein (NP) (Zaire) has been developed to aid in the ongoing research efforts towards developing new vaccine candidates and in vitro diagnostics.

REFERENCES

• Curran and Kolakofsky (1999). Replication of paramyxoviruses. Adv Virus Res. 54:403-22.
• Sanchez et al. (2001). Filoviridae: Marburg and Ebola viruses, p. 1279-1304. In D. M. Knipe and P. M. Howley (ed.), Fields virology. Lippincott-Raven, Philadelphia, Pa.
• Saijo et al. (2001). Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays for detection of antibodies to Ebola and Marburg viruses using recombinant nucleoproteins. J Clin Microbiol.39(1):1-7.
• Sanchez et al. (1989). The nucleoprotein gene of Ebola virus: cloning, sequencing, and in vitro expression. Virology. 170(1):81-91.
• Sugita et al. (2018). Cryo-EM structure of the Ebola virus nucleoprotein–RNA complex at 3.6 Å resolution. Nature 563, p.137–140.
• Watanabe et al. (2006). Functional Mapping of the Nucleoprotein of Ebola Virus. J Virol. 80(8): 3743–3751.
• Wilson and Hart (2001). Protection from Ebola virus mediated by cytotoxic T lymphocytes specific for the viral nucleoprotein. J Virol. 2001 Mar;75(6):2660-4.