Phosphoprotein of the Rinderpest Virus Forms a Tetramer through a Coiled Coil Region Important for Biological Function

Phosphoprotein (P) of negative sense RNA viruses functions as a transcriptional transactivator of the viral polymerase (L). We report here the characterization of oligomeric P protein of rinderpest virus (RPV) and provide a structural basis for its multimerization. By size exclusion chromatography and dynamic light scattering analyses we show that bacterially expressed P protein exists as an oligomer, thus excluding the role of phosphorylation in P protein oligomerization. Gel filtration analyses of various parts of the P protein, also expressed in Escherichia coli, revealed that the predicted coiled coil region in the C-terminal domain is responsible for P protein oligomerization. Dynamic light scattering analysis confirmed the oligomeric nature of the coiled coil region of P. Chemical cross-linking analysis suggested that the C-terminal coiled coil region exists as a tetramer. The tetramer is formed by coiled coil interaction as shown by circular dichroism spectral analysis. Based on sequence homology, we propose a three-dimensional structure of the multimerization domain of RPV P using the crystal structure for multimerization domain of sendai virus (SeV) P as a template. Four-stranded coiled coil structure of the model is stabilized by a series of interactions predominantly between short nonpolar side chains emerging from different strands. In an in vivo replication/transcription system using a synthetic minigenome of RPV, we show that multimerization is essential for P protein function(s), and the multimerization domain is highly conserved between two morbilliviruses namely RPV and peste de petits ruminants virus. These results are discussed in the context of biological functions of P protein among various negative- stranded RNA viruses.