6i2n

Publication Abstract from PubMed

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 (Hantaviridae family, Bunyavirales order) and determine its structure at 3.3 A 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.

High resolution cryo-EM structure of the helical RNA-bound Hantaan virus nucleocapsid reveals its assembly mechanisms.,Arragain B, Reguera J, Desfosses A, Gutsche I, Schoehn G, Malet H Elife. 2019 Jan 14;8. pii: 43075. doi: 10.7554/eLife.43075. PMID:30638449^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.