Viruses icosahedral, structure

Can any number of identical subunits be accommodated in the asymmetric unit while preserving specificity of interactions within an icosahedral arrangement This question was answered by Don Caspar then at Children s Hospital, Boston, and Aaron Klug in Cambridge, England, who showed in a classical paper in 1962 that only certain multiples (1, 3, 4, 7...) of 60 subunits are likely to occur. They called these multiples triangulation numbers, T. Icosahedral virus structures are frequently referred to in terms of their trian-gulation numbers a T = 3 virus structure therefore implies that the number of subunits in the icosahedral shell is 3 x 60 = 180. 

Figure 16.6 A T = 3 icosahedral virus structure contains 180 subunits in its protein shell. Each asymmetric unit (one such unit is shown in thick lines) contains three protein subunits A, B, and C. The icosahedral structure is viewed along a threefold axis, the same view as in Figure 16.5. One asymmetric unit is shown in dark colors.

DETERMINATION OF ICOSAHEDRAL VIRUS STRUCTURES BY ELECTRON CRYOMICROSCOPY AT SUBNANOMETER RESOLUTION... 

The satellite ssRNA viruses are a group of ssRNA icosahedral viruses, which are the satellites to certain plant viruses (Pritsch and Mayo, 1989). Satellite tobacco necrosis virus (STNV), a satellite virus to tobacco necrosis virus, was in fact one of the first icosahedral virus structures to be determined by X-ray crystallography (Liljas et al, 1982). In more recent years, two other satellite plant viruses, satellite tobacco mosaic virus (STMV) (Larson et al, 1993, 1998) and satellite panicum mosaic virus (SPMV) (Ban and McPherson, 1995), have been determined. These are perhaps the simplest and smallest icosahedral viruses whose structures have been determined by X-ray crystallography. Of relevance to our discussion is the structure of STMV determined to 1.8-A resolution, which shows extraordinary details about genome organization (Larson et al, 1998 Larson and McPherson, 2001). 

One of the most striking results that has emerged from the high-resolution crystallographic studies of these icosahedral viruses is that their coat proteins have the same basic core structure, that of a jelly roll barrel, which was discussed in Chapter 5. This is true of plant, insect, and mammalian viruses. In the case of the picornaviruses, VPl, VP2, and VP3 all have the same jelly roll structure as the subunits of satellite tobacco necrosis virus, tomato bushy stunt virus, and the other T = 3 plant viruses. Not every spherical virus has subunit structures of the jelly roll type. As we will see, the subunits of the RNA bacteriophage, MS2, and those of alphavirus cores have quite different structures, although they do form regular icosahedral shells. 

Coulibaly, E, ChevaUer, C., Gutsche, I., Pous, J., Navaza, J., BressaneUi, S., Bernard Delmas, B. and Rey F. A. (2005). The birnavirus crystal structure reveals structural relationships among icosahedral viruses. Cell 120, 761-772. 

The refined coordinates will correspond to either the icosahedral asymmetric unit or the crystallographic asymmetric unit, hence symmetry operations must be applied to generate the whole capsid. A useful repository of virus structure information is the website http // viperdb.scripps.edu/ where portions of the viral capsid can be generated. 

Chiu, W. and Rixon, F. J. (2002). High resolution structural studies of complex icosahedral viruses a brief overview. Virus Res. 82, 9-17. 

Lee, K. K. and Johnson, J. E. (2003). Complimentary approaches to structure determination of icosahedral viruses. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 13, 558-569. 

The Hu and Bentley model is the only one that tries to describe VLP production and assembling in baculovirus infected insect cells [105]. Nevertheless, regarding VLP assembly, the formalism presented is completely theoretical and based on the assembly pathway of icosahedral viruses. From a process development point of view, this model does not generate enough output to make it applicable to bioreaction operational parameters definition. However, it can be used as the basis for a more structured approach to the VLP assembling process in baculovirus infected insect cells. 

The structure of the capsid (protein shell) for an icosahedral virus such as tomato bushy stunt virus. Pentons (P) are located at the 12 vertices of the icosahedron. Hexons (H), of which there are 20, form the edges and faces of the icosahedron. Each penton is composed of five protein subunits and each hexon is composed of six protein subunits. In all, the structure contains 180 protein subunits. 

An initial approach to fullerene enumeration was based on point-group symmetry (Fowler 1986 Fowler et al. 1988) and involved an extension of Coxeter s (1971) work on icosahedral tessellations of the sphere and of methods for the classification of virus structures (Caspar Klug 1962). This approach led to magic numbers in fullerene electronic structure (Fowler Steer 1987 Fowler 1990) and will be described briefly here. 

Larger icosahedral viruses that have been structurally well characterized do not obey the simple quasi-equivalence rule. For example, adenovirus capsids, for which T = 25, are built of 240 hexons (six-coordinated units) that are trimers of the major structural protein, and the 12 pentons consist of a different protein (Burnett 1984). Polyomavirus capsids, for which T = 7, are built of a single major structural protein,... 

Ochoa WF et al (2006) Generation and structural analysis of reactive empty particles derived from an icosahedral virus. Chem Biol 13 771-778 PDBID 2BFU... 

Mackay called attention to yet another limitation of the 230 space-group system. It covers only those helices that are compatible with the three-dimensional lattices. All other helices that are finite in one or two dimensions are excluded. Some important virus structures with icosahedral symmetry are among them. Also, there are very small... 

As a close relative to the brome mosaic virus the cowpea chlorotic mottle vims (CCMV) possesses an outer diameter of 28 nm, is assembled from 180 subunits that create an icosahedral type structure, and contains an RNA core. " Another similarity is the cationic interior surface of the viral capsid which is formed from subunits with highly basic N-termini (6 positively charged arginine and 3 lysine residues) that project into the cavity and stabilize the RNA core. However as a potential biomineralization template, the electrostatic environment of the virion cavity precludes any cationic metal precursors and thus limits its applicability for nanoparticle synthesis. 

---