Measles virus editing provides an additional cysteine-rich protein

Abstract

The measles virus (MV) phosphoprotein (P) gene encodes two known proteins, P (Mr approximately 70,000), involved in viral transcription, and, in a different reading frame, C (Mr approximately 20,000). By a combination of cDNA cloning, cDNA and RNA sequencing, and in vitro translation, we demonstrate here that the MV P gene also expresses a third product (Mr approximately 46,000) containing the amino-terminal region of P but a different, cysteine-rich carboxy-terminal motif. This third protein is translated from mRNAs in which one G residue has been inserted after three genomically encoded Gs, a modification found in about 50% of the P mRNAs. A smaller fraction of transcripts contain several additional G residues.