Publication Abstract from PubMed
Parvovirus Minute Virus of Mice (MVM) packages a single copy of its linear single-stranded DNA genome into pre-formed capsids, in a process that is probably driven by a virus-encoded helicase. Parvoviruses have a roughly cylindrically shaped pore that surrounds each of the twelve fivefold vertices. The pore, which penetrates the virion shell, is created by the juxtaposition of ten anti-parallel beta-strands, two from each of the fivefold related capsid proteins. There is a bottleneck in the channel formed by the symmetry-related sidechains of the leucines at position 172. We report here the X-ray crystal structure of the particles produced by a leucine to tryptophan mutation at position 172 and the analysis of its biochemical properties. The mutant capsid has its fivefold channel blocked and the particles were unable to package DNA, strongly suggesting that the fivefold pore is the packaging portal for genome entry.
Structure of a packaging defective mutant of Minute Virus of Mice indicates that the genome is packaged via a pore at a fivefold axis.,Plevka P, Hafenstein S, Li L, D'Abramo A Jr, Cotmore SF, Rossmann MG, Tattersall P J Virol. 2011 Mar 2. PMID:21367911[1]
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
