Coronavirus Nucleoprotein (CoV-NP-NL63)

Human coronavirus NL63 or HCoV-NL63 is a species of coronavirus that was identified in late 2004 in a seven-month-old child with bronchiolitis in the Netherlands. The infecting virus is an enveloped, positivesense, single-stranded RNA virus that enters its host cell by the ACE2 receptor. Infection with the virus has been confirmed worldwide and has an association with many common symptoms and diseases. Associated diseases include mild to moderate upper respiratory tract infections, severe lower respiratory tract infection, croup and bronchiolitis. The coronavirus genome encodes a spike protein (S), an envelope protein, a membrane protein, and a nucleoprotein in this order. Nucleoprotein packages the positive strand viral genome RNA into a helical ribonucleocapsid (RNP) and plays a fundamental role during virion assembly through its interactions with the viral genome and membrane protein M. It also plays an important role in enhancing the efficiency of subgenomic viral RNA transcription as well as viral replication.