Sequence Motif Comparison and Homology Modeling of Helper Component Proteinase (HC-Pro) of Banana bract mosaic virus

Abstract

The Helper Component Proteinase (HC-Pro) is a key protein encoded by the plant viruses of the genus potyvirus. The HC-Pro is involved in different steps of the viral cycle, aphid transmission, replication viru s cell-to-cell and systemic movement and is a suppressor of post-transcriptional ge ne silencing. The amino acid sequence of Banana bract mosaic viru s (BBrMV) HC-Pro was compared both inter and intra species across different potyviruses to demonstrate the functional correlation of sequence motifs of HC-Pro to predict its role in virus cycles. Knowledge on the structure of HC-Pro will greatly contribute to understand its multifaceted functions and how structural domains are organized to fulfill them in concert or independently hence, a stable model of BBrMV HC-Pro has been proposed based on homology modeling. The results obtai ned from this study will provide a framework for new hypothesis and research directions in the area of differential role of HC-Pro.