Characterisation of human coronavirus-NL63 nucleocapsid protein

Abstract

Coronavirus N is a multifunctional protein that plays an essential role in enhancing the efficiency of virus transcription and assembly. This manuscript reports the analysis of HCoV-NL63 N protein by comparing the amino acid sequences of coronavirus N-homologues. A ~50 kDa protein was expressed in both a mammalian cell and bacterial cell system that is similar in size to the predicted ~42.6 kDa HCoV-NL63 N protein. PSORTII identified two putative nuclear localisations signals and PONDR identified one disordered region in HCoV-NL63 N. The reported protein analysis serves as a prelude to laboratory analysis to understand the processing of HCoV-NL63 N.