{"doi":"10.1101/2020.08.26.269043","title":"SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid protein is decorated with multiple N- and O-glycans","abstract":"Abstract Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19) started at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, China has spread rapidly and became a pandemic. Since there is no therapy available that is proven as fully protective against COVID-19, a vaccine to protect against deadly COVID-19 is urgently needed. Nucleocapsid protein (N protein), is one of the most abundant proteins in coronaviruses and is a potential target for both vaccine development and point of care diagnostics. The variable mass of N protein (45 to 60 kDa), suggests the presence of post-translational modifications (PTMs), and it is critical to clearly define these PTMs to gain the structural understanding necessary for further vaccine research. There have been several reports suggesting that the N protein is phosphorylated but lacks glycosylation. Our comprehensive glycomics and glycoproteomics experiments confirm that the N protein is highly O-glycosylated and also contains significant levels of N-glycosylation. We were able to confirm the presence of O-glycans on seven sites with substantial glycan occupancy, in addition to less abundant O-glycans on four sites. We also detected N-glycans on two out of five potential N-glycosylation sites. Moreover, we were able to confirm one phosphorylation site. Recent studies have indicated that the N protein can serve as an important diagnostic marker for coronavirus disease and a major immunogen by priming protective immune responses. Thus, detailed structural characterization of the N protein may provide useful insights for understanding the roles of glycosylation on viral pathogenesis and also in vaccine design and development.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":119203,"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":25,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9512,"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":226448,"name":"Asif Shajahan","orcid":"0000-0002-4804-1130","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":226450,"name":"Anne Gleinich","orcid":"0000-0001-9305-4339","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":553705,"name":"Daniel S. Rouhani","orcid":"0009-0006-3404-5196","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":255735,"name":"Christian Heiß","orcid":"0000-0003-1118-8953","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":91961,"name":"Parastoo Azadi","orcid":"0000-0002-6166-9432","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":226449,"name":"Nitin T. Supekar","orcid":"0000-0002-7006-7177","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":46,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:14:08.313144Z","pmid":null,"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":[]}