Figure 5
Interaction between tubulin and core protein was interrupted upon nocodazole treatment. (A) HepG2 cells transiently overexpressing FLAG-tagged HBV core protein (FLAG-core) were cultured in the presence or absence of nocodazole, and harvested to immunoprecipitate with anti-core antibody and to detect tubulin (a) and core (b) in the precipitates. Tubulin (c) and actin as an internal control (d) were also detected in the total cell lysate without immunoprecipitation. (B) HepG2 cells transiently transfected with an HBV-core expression plasmid were treated with nocodazole, and then were stained for HBV core (red), tubulin (green) and the nucleus (blue) by immunofluorescence analysis. Panels d and h are the zoomed in patterns of the inset shown in c (merged panels of a and b) and g (merged panels of e and f), respectively. The exposure time of the figures for “control” (a–d) and “nocodazole” (e–h) is the same. Panel e’ shows a picture of panel e with longer exposure time. Microtubule disassembly induced the dissociation of core-tubulin interaction.
