Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 15, 2026

A Fluorogenic Peptide Cleavage Assay to Screen for Proteolytic Activity: Applications for coronavirus spike protein activation
Published on: January 9, 2019
The Hantaan virus glycoprotein precursor is cleaved at the conserved pentapeptide WAASA
1Institut für Virologie, Robert-Koch-Str. 17, Marburg, D-35037, Germany.
Abstract:
The medium segment of the tripartite negative-stranded RNA genome of hantaviruses encodes for the predicted glycoprotein precursor GPC. We have demonstrated here the expression of the glycoprotein precursor of Hantaan virus following transfection of mammalian cells. The cleavage of the precursor into the glycoproteins G1 and G2 followed the rules for signal peptides and seemed to occur directly at the pentapeptide motif "WAASA." Our data indicate that the signal peptidase complex is responsible for the proteolytic processing of the precursor GPC of Hantaan virus. The comparison of this region of the glycoprotein precursor, including the absolutely conserved WAASA motif, suggests a similar cleavage event for all hantavirus glycoproteins.
Related Concept Videos
Leaky Scanning
Mitochondrial Precursor Proteins
Most of the mitochondrial precursors...
Tail-anchoring of Proteins in the ER Membrane
Influenza
Inhibitors of Virion Maturation and Assembly

