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-Structure paper
Title | High resolution cryo-EM structure of the helical RNA-bound Hantaan virus nucleocapsid reveals its assembly mechanisms. |
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Journal, issue, pages | Elife, Vol. 8, Year 2019 |
Publish date | Jan 14, 2019 |
Authors | Benoît Arragain / Juan Reguera / Ambroise Desfosses / Irina Gutsche / Guy Schoehn / Hélène Malet / |
PubMed Abstract | Negative-strand RNA viruses condense their genome into helical nucleocapsids that constitute essential templates for viral replication and transcription. The intrinsic flexibility of nucleocapsids ...Negative-strand RNA viruses condense their genome into helical nucleocapsids that constitute essential templates for viral replication and transcription. The intrinsic flexibility of nucleocapsids usually prevents their full-length structural characterisation at high resolution. Here, we describe purification of full-length recombinant metastable helical nucleocapsid of Hantaan virus ( family, order) and determine its structure at 3.3 Å resolution by cryo-electron microscopy. The structure reveals the mechanisms of helical multimerisation via sub-domain exchanges between protomers and highlights nucleotide positions in a continuous positively charged groove compatible with viral genome binding. It uncovers key sites for future structure-based design of antivirals that are currently lacking to counteract life-threatening hantavirus infections. The structure also suggests a model of nucleoprotein-polymerase interaction that would enable replication and transcription solely upon local disruption of the nucleocapsid. |
External links | Elife / PubMed:30638449 / PubMed Central |
Methods | EM (helical sym.) |
Resolution | 3.3 Å |
Structure data | |
Source |
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Keywords | VIRAL PROTEIN / Nucleoprotein / Nucleocapsid / RNA-binding |