Construction of expression plasmids for the fusion protein of Sendai virus, and their expression in E. coli cells and eucaryotic cells.

To examine the properties and the role of the fusion protein (F) of Sendai virus at the molecular level, a plasmid, pUC-F, was constructed by inserting cDNA for the F protein into a pUC vector. Upon induction of E. coli cells transformed with pUC-F, a new protein was obtained, which was identified as Fo on Western blot analysis. The cDNA fragment for the F gene was excised from pUC-F and inserted into an eucaryotic expression vector, pSVL, to yield pSVL-F. COS-1 cells transfected with pSVL-F gave a band on SDS-gel electrophoresis which corresponded to the size of the Fo proteins.