Browsing by Subject "measles virus"

Although a vaccine for measles was developed already in 1963 by Enders et al., in 2012 there were still 122 000 deaths caused by measles according to the World Health Organization. More than 95% of the incidences happen in developing countries, but there are still outbreaks also in areas with good vaccination programs. In these regions, the onset of decease happens because of the extreme high infectivity of the measles virus (MV) and the decrease of herd immunity of a population because of vaccine refusals or other fails to immunize. Measles can cause serious complications and there is not a specific antiviral treatment for it. In addition, there are also other human pathogens in the same group of paramyxoviruses that have not a specific cure or even a vaccine: parainfluenza (PIV) and Human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV). MV has −ssRNA genome that is packed inside a helical nucleoprotein capsid. Phosphoprotein (P) keeps the nucleoproteins (N) from self-assembling prematurely by binding to them and keeping them as monomers. P also works as a cofactor in viral RNA replication and transcription by helping the polymerase to access the genome inside the nucleoproteincapsid. Matrix protein (M) helps to concentrate the ribonucleocapsid to the sites where new virus particles are released from the host cell. The phosphorylation of MV proteins affects virus signalling with the host cell. In this Master’s thesis, I produced and purified recombinant measles N, P and M proteins as well as wild type MV. I determined the phosphorylation status of these proteins alone and in the P-N complex by using phosphate affinity electrophoresis method developed by Kinoshita et al. (2006). The phosphate affinity electrophoresis uses tag molecules that bind reversibly to phosphate groups in proteins. Determining the significance of post-transcriptional modifications in measles proteins would shed light to understanding paramyxovirus structure and signalling and possibly help the development of biomedical applications.