Mapping of the regions involved in self-interaction of rice stripe virus P3 protein

Rice stripe virus (RSV) protein P3 is a suppressor of RNA silencing in plants. P3 has been shown by biomolecular fluorescence complementation assay to self-interact in planta but the regions responsible for homotypic interaction have not been determined. Here we analyzed the domains for the self-interaction of P3 by using yeast two-hybrid, co-immunoprecipitation and fluorescence experiments. The results showed that P3 was also able to interact with itself in yeast and insect cells. The domain responsible for P3-P3 interaction was mapped to amino acids 15-30 at the N-terminal region of P3. Furthermore, subcellular localization suggested that the homo-oligomerization was the prerequisite for P3 to form larger protein aggregates in the nucleus of insect cell.