Interaction between the nucleocapsid protein and the phosphoprotein of human parainfluenza virus 3. Mapping of the interacting domains using a two-hybrid system.

A two-hybrid system was used to study interaction in vivo between the nucleocapsid protein (NP) and the phosphoprotein (P) of human parainfluenza virus type 3 (HPIV-3). Two plasmids, one containing the amino terminus of P fused to the DNA-binding domain of the yeast transactivator, GAL4, and the other containing the amino terminus of NP fused to the herpesvirus transactivator, VP16, were transfected in COS-1 cells along with a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter plasmid containing GAL4 DNA-binding sites. A specific and high-affinity interaction between NP and P was observed as measured by the activation of the CAT gene. Mapping of the domains in P (603 amino acids) involved in the association with NP revealed that NH2-terminal 40 and COOH-terminal 20 amino acids are important for such association. Interestingly, a stretch of NH2-terminal amino acids as short as 63-403 interacted with NP more than the wild type, reaching greater than 2.5-fold as measured by the CAT assay. These results suggest that a domain is present in P that negatively regulates its interaction with NP. Deletion of NH2-terminal 40 and COOH-terminal 160 amino acids of NP reduced the CAT activity by more than 95%. These results underscore the important differences between negative strand RNA viruses with respect to interactions between these two viral proteins involved in gene expression.