Problems in understanding the structure and assembly of viruses
- MIT, Cambridge, MA (United States)
Though viruses infect the cells of all groups of animals, plants, and microorganisms, their structures follow a limited number of general themes; spherical or cylindrical shells built of hundreds of repeated protein subunits enclosing a nucleic acid - DNA or RNA - genome. Since the 1960s it has been known that the protein shells of spherical viruses in fact conform to icosahedral symmetry or to subtle deviations from icosahedral symmetry. The construction of the shell lattices and the transformations they go through in the different stages of the viral life cycle are not fully understood. The shells contain the nucleic in a highly condensed state, of unknown coiling/organization. Features of the well studied bacterial viruses will be reviewed, with examples from adenoviruses, herpesviruses, poliovirus, and HIV. The emergence of new viral disease has led to increased interest in the development of agents which interfere with virus reproduction at the level of the assembly or function of the organized particle. Recently computational approaches to the problem of virus assembly have made important contributions to clarifying shell assembly processes. 1 ref.
- Research Organization:
- Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY (United States); Sloan (Alfred P.) Foundation, New York, NY (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 549010
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970137--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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BASIC STUDIES
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
ADENOVIRUS
AIDS VIRUS
DNA
ETIOLOGY
LIFE CYCLE
MATHEMATICS
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
NUCLEIC ACIDS
POLIO VIRUS
PROTEINS
REPRODUCTION
RNA
SHELLS
SPHERICAL CONFIGURATION
STRUCTURE-ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
SYMMETRY
THERAPY
TRANSFORMATIONS
VIRAL DISEASES
VIRUSES