Nature Communications (Oct 2022)

Near-atomic, non-icosahedrally averaged structure of giant virus Paramecium bursaria chlorella virus 1

  • Qianqian Shao,
  • Irina V. Agarkova,
  • Eric A. Noel,
  • David D. Dunigan,
  • Yunshu Liu,
  • Aohan Wang,
  • Mingcheng Guo,
  • Linlin Xie,
  • Xinyue Zhao,
  • Michael G. Rossmann,
  • James L. Van Etten,
  • Thomas Klose,
  • Qianglin Fang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34218-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Giant viruses are large DNA viruses with capsid diameters up to 500 nm. Given technical challenges only few high-resolution structures of viral capsids exist. Here, Shao et al. provide a nearatomic structure of giant virus PBCV-1 capsid and resolve the previously unknown asymmetric capsid components. The local capsid microenvironments created by these components provide insights into the mechanism of capsid assembly of giant viruses.