Background: The P/C mRNA of Sendai virus (SeV), a prototypic member of the family Paramyxoviridae in the Mononegavirales superfamily comprising a large number of nonsegmented negative strand RNA viruses, encodes a nested set of accessory proteins, C 0 , C, Y1 and Y2, referred to collectively as C proteins, initiating, respectively, at ACG/81 and AUGs/114, 183, 201 in the þ1 frame relative to the ORF of phospho (P) protein, the smaller subunit of RNA polymerase. Among them, C is the major species expressed in infected cells at a molar ratio which is several-fold higher than the other three. However, their function has remained an enigma. It has not even been established whether or not the C proteins are essential for viral replication. Many other viruses in Mononegavirales encode C-like proteins, but their roles also remain to be defined.