Jelly roll structure spherical plant viruses

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. 

The coat proteins of many different spherical plant and animal viruses have similar jelly roll barrel structures, indicating an evolutionary relationship... 

The structures of many different plant, insect, and animal spherical viruses have now been determined to high resolution, and in most of them the subunit structures have the same jelly roll topology. However, a very different fold of the subunit was found in bacteriophage MS2, whose structure was determined to 3 A resolution by Karin Valegard in the laboratory of Lars Liljas, Uppsala. 

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