Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
J Virol Methods, 2011 Jul;175(1):74-9.
PMID: 21536072 DOI: 10.1016/j.jviromet.2011.04.021

Abstract

Macrobrachium rosenbergii nodavirus (MrNv) infects giant freshwater prawns and causes white tail disease (WTD). The coding region of the capsid protein of MrNv was amplified with RT-PCR and cloned into the pTrcHis2-TOPO vector. The recombinant plasmid was introduced into Escherichia coli and protein expression was induced with IPTG. SDS-PAGE showed that the recombinant protein containing the His-tag and myc epitope has a molecular mass of about 46 kDa and it was detected by the anti-His antibody in Western blotting. The protein was purified using immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) and transmission electron microscopic analysis revealed that the recombinant protein assembled into virus-like particles (VLPs) with a diameter of about 30±3 nm. The size of the particles was confirmed by dynamic light scattering. Nucleic acids were extracted from the VLPs and treatment with nucleases showed that they were mainly RNA molecules. This is the first report describing the production of MrNv capsid protein in bacteria and its assembly into VLPs.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.