Abstract
The hepatitis B virus X-protein (HBx) has been expressed in Escherichia coli both as an unfused protein and with an N-terminal hexaHis-containing fusion sequence. Both forms of HBx, after purification, displayed a potent AMP kinase activity, in which HBx phosphorylates AMP to ADP, using ATP as the exclusive phosphate donor. We also found that HBx has previously unreported GTPase and GTP-ADP nucleoside diphosphate kinase activities.
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