The measles virus N TAIL-XD complex: An illustrative example of fuzziness

Abstract

In this chapter, I focus on the biochemical and structural characterization of the complex between the intrinsically disordered C-terminal domain of the measles virus nucleoprotein (N TAIL) and the C-terminal X domain (XD) of the viral phosphoprotein (P). I summarize the main experimental data available so far pointing out the prevalently disordered nature of N TAIL even after complex formation and the role of the flexible C-terminal appendage in the binding reaction. I finally discuss the possible functional role of these residual disordered regions within the complex in terms of their ability to capture other regulatory, binding partners. © 2012 Landes Bioscience and Springer Science+Business Media.