Effect of amino acid substitutions on glycosylation of the haemagglutinin-neuraminidase glycoprotein of Newcastle disease virus strain Beaudette C.

The nucleotide sequences of two monoclonal antibody-resistant mutant viruses predict changes from the wild-type in the number of potential glycosylation (Asn-X-Thr/Ser) in the mutant haemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) glycoproteins of the Beaudette C strain of Newcastle disease virus. The HN glycoproteins of these mutants, F5 and Z18, migrate either slower (F5) or faster (Z18) than that of the wild-type in SDS-PAGE. HN proteins synthesized in chick embryo fibroblasts following infection by either mutant or wild-type virus in the presence of tunicamycin (an inhibitor of glycosylation), comigrate on SDS-PAGE. These results confirm that the HN protein of the mutant virus, F5, has gained a glycosylation site at Asn(323)-Ser-Ser and that the conserved potential glycosylation site at Asn(481)-His-Thr is indeed glycosylated in the HN protein of the wild-type Beaudette C strain of Newcastle disease virus but is lost in that of the mutant virus, Z18.