The large protein ‘L’ of Peste-des-petits-ruminants virus exhibits RNA triphosphatase activity, the first enzyme in mRNA capping pathway

Peste-des-petits-ruminants is a highly contagious and fatal disease of goats and sheep caused by non-segmented, negative strand RNA virus belonging to the Morbillivirus genus—Peste-des-petits-ruminants virus (PPRV) which is evolutionarily closely related to Rinderpest virus (RPV). The large protein ‘L’ of the members of this genus is a multifunctional catalytic protein, which transcribes and replicates the viral genomic RNA as well as possesses mRNA capping, methylation and polyadenylation activities; however, the detailed mechanism of mRNA capping by PPRV L protein has not been studied. We have found earlier that the L protein of RPV has RNA triphosphatase (RTPase), guanylyltransferase (GTase) and methyltransferase activities, and unlike vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), follows the conventional pathway of mRNA capping. In the present work, using a 5′-end labelled viral RNA as substrate, we demonstrate that PPRV L protein has RTPase activity when present in the ribonucleoprotein complex of purified virus as well as recombinant L–P complex expressed in insect cells. Further, a minimal domain in the C-terminal region (aa1640–1840) of the L protein has been expressed in E. coli and shown to exhibit RTPase activity. The RTPase activity of PPRV L protein is metal-dependent and functions with a divalent cation, either magnesium or manganese. In addition, RTPase associated nucleotide triphosphatase activity (NTPase) of PPRV L protein is also demonstrated. This work provides the first detailed study of RTPase activity and identifies the RTPase domain of PPRV L protein.