{"doi":"10.1101/2020.07.30.228023","title":"The SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid phosphoprotein forms mutually exclusive condensates with RNA and the membrane-associated M protein","abstract":"The multifunctional nucleocapsid (N) protein in SARS-CoV-2 binds the ~30 kb viral RNA genome to aid its packaging into the 80-90nm membrane-enveloped virion. The N protein is composed of N-terminal RNA-binding and C-terminal dimerization domains that are flanked by three intrinsically disordered regions. Here we demonstrate that a centrally located 40 amino acid intrinsically disordered domain drives phase separation of N protein when bound to RNA, with the morphology of the resulting condensates affected by inclusion in the RNA of the putative SARS-CoV-2 packaging signal. The SARS-CoV-2 M protein, normally embedded in the virion membrane with its C-terminus extending into the virion core, independently induces N protein phase separation that is dependent on the N protein's C-terminal dimerization domain and disordered region. Three-component mixtures of N+M+RNA form condensates with mutually exclusive compartments containing N+M or N+RNA, including spherical annular structures in which the M protein coats the outside of an N+RNA condensate. These findings support a model in which phase separation of the N protein with both the viral genomic RNA and the SARS-CoV-2 M protein facilitates RNA packaging and virion assembly.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":118384,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":95,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9651,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":235298,"name":"Qiaozhen Ye","orcid":"0000-0002-3942-4121","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":467230,"name":"Digvijay Singh","orcid":"0000-0002-7411-4436","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":98028,"name":"Elizabeth Villa","orcid":"0000-0003-4677-9809","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227272,"name":"Don W. Cleveland","orcid":"0000-0002-1934-3682","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106560,"name":"Kevin D. Corbett","orcid":"0000-0001-5854-2388","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":550470,"name":"Shan Lu","orcid":"0000-0003-4740-0610","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":73,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:13:58.531532Z","pmid":"32766587","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}