Tuyển tập báo cáo các nghiên cứu khoa học quốc tế ngành hóa học dành cho các bạn yêu hóa học tham khảo đề tài: The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-coronavirus 3a protein may function as a modulator of the trafficking properties of the spike protein | Virology Journal BioMed Central Hypothesis Open Access The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SARS -coronavirus 3a protein may function as a modulator of the trafficking properties of the spike protein Yee-Joo Tan Address Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology 61 Biopolis Drive Proteos 138673 Singapore Email Yee-JooTan - mcbtanyj@ Corresponding author Published 10 February 2005 Received 17 January 2005 Accepted 10 February 2005 Virology Journal 2005 2 5 doi l743-422X-2-5 This article is available from http content 2 1 5 2005 Tan licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http licenses by which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background A recent publication reported that a tyrosine-dependent sorting signal present in cytoplasmic tail of the spike protein of most coronaviruses mediates the intracellular retention of the spike protein. This motif is missing from the spike protein of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus SARS-CoV resulting in high level of surface expression of the spike protein when it is expressed on its own in vitro. Presentation of the hypothesis It has been shown that the severe acute respiratory syndromecoronavirus genome contains open reading frames that encode for proteins with no homologue in other coronaviruses. One of them is the 3a protein which is expressed during infection in vitro and in vivo. The 3a protein which contains a tyrosine-dependent sorting signal in its cytoplasmic domain is expressed on the cell surface and can undergo internalization. In addition 3a can bind to the spike protein and through this interaction it may be able to cause the spike protein to become internalized resulting in a decrease in its surface expression. Testing the hypothesis The effects of 3a on the
