Cyanovirin-N ( CV-N) is a protein produced by the cyanobacterium Nostoc ellipsosporum that displays Virucide activity against several , including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).[
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/ref> The virucidal activity of CV-N is mediated through specific high-affinity interactions with the viral Viral envelope Glycoprotein gp120 and gp41, as well as high-mannose found on the HIV envelope.
The blue-green alga Nostoc ellipsosporum naturally contains CV-N. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the United States of America carried out the initial isolation and characterization of this protein in 1999.[
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Structure
CV-N is a lengthy, mostly Beta sheet protein that displays internal two-fold pseudosymmetry. The fundamental atomic root-mean-square of the two sequence repeats (1-50 and 51-101) differs by 1.3 Angstrom while sharing 32% of the same sequence. The total fold depends on a number of interactions between the two repetitions; therefore, they do not actually belong in separate domains.
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