Description
Mumps is a contagious viral infection that causes painful enlargement of the salivary glands. The infection may also affect the testes, brain, and pancreas, especially in adults. Although the infection may occur at any age, most cases occur in children 5 to 10 years old. The infection is unusual in children younger than 2 years. About 20% of men who become infected after puberty develop inflammation of one or both testes (orchitis). Inflammation of the testes causes severe pain. Once healed, the affected testis may be smaller, but testosterone production and fertility are usually unaffected.Mumps virus is composed by six major structural protein, nucleoprotein is responsible for viral genome packaging, and formation of replication complexes along with other proteins. Viral nucleocapsid protein usually elicit a long term humoral immune response in patient and animal. Mumps diagnosis can be based on specific antibody reaction to mumps nucleoprotein. Recombinant mumps nucleoprotein is full length protein from strain SBL-1 (MuV) (aa 1-553, Swiss-Prot# P21277)