Tick‐borne encephalitis virus (TBEV), a member of flaviviruses, represents a serious health threat by causing human encephalitis mainly in central and eastern Europe, Russia, and northeastern Asia. As no specific therapy is available, there is an urgent need to understand all steps of the TBEV replication cycle at the molecular level. One of the critical events is the packaging of flaviviral genomic RNA by TBEV C protein to form a nucleocapsid. We purified recombinant TBEV C protein and used a combination of physical–chemical approaches, such as size‐exclusion chromatography, circular dichroism, NMR spectroscopies, and transmission electron microscopy, to analyze its structural stability and its ability to dimerize/oligomerize. We compared the ability of TBEV C protein to assemble in vitro into a nucleocapsid‐like structure with that of dengue C protein.

中文翻译：

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蜱传脑炎病毒C蛋白的表征和体外组装

蜱传脑炎病毒 (TBEV) 是黄病毒的一种，主要在中欧和东欧、俄罗斯和东北亚引起人类脑炎，对健康构成严重威胁。由于没有可用的特定疗法，因此迫切需要在分子水平上了解 TBEV 复制周期的所有步骤。关键事件之一是 TBEV C 蛋白包装黄病毒基因组 RNA 以形成核衣壳。我们纯化了重组 TBEV C 蛋白，并使用物理-化学方法的组合，如尺寸排阻色谱、圆二色性、核磁共振光谱和透射电子显微镜，分析其结构稳定性及其二聚/寡聚化能力。