Regions of bovine adenovirus-3 IVa2 involved in nuclear/nucleolar localization and interaction with pV

Abstract Bovine adenovirus-3 (BAdV-3) is a non enveloped, icosahedral DNA virus containing a genome of 34446 bps. The intermediate region of BAdV-3 encodes pIX and IVa2 proteins. Here, we report the characterization of BAdV-3 IVa2. Anti-IVa2 serum detected a 50 kDa protein at 24–48 h post infection in BAdV-3 infected cells. The IVa2 localizes to nucleus and nucleolus of BAdV-3 infected cells. Analysis of mutant IVa2 demonstrated that amino acids 1–25 and 373–448 are required for nuclear and nucleolar localization of IVa2, respectively. The nuclear import of IVa2 utilize importin α -1 of importin nuclear import pathway. Although deletion/substitution of amino acids 4–18 is sufficient to abrogate the nuclear localization of IVa2, amino acids 1–25 are required for nuclear localization of a cytoplasmic protein. Furthermore, we demonstrate that amino acids 1–25 and 120–140 of IVa2 interact with importin α-1 and pV proteins, respectively in BAdV-3 infected cells.