Cryo-EM reconstruction of virus

From the Smith lab: This is an cryo-electron microscopy image reconstruction of cucumber necrosis virus. The image in the upper left hand corner is a representation of the virus protein capsid with each of the subunits represented by a different color. The large image is a cutaway of the image reconstruction. We found that the virus is composed of three distinct shells that, together with previously published neutron scattering experiments, are composed of protein (the outer blue shell), RNA (the second mauve shell), and protein (the inner orange shell). Mutations in the inner protein shell affects the ability of the virus to package the RNA genome and results in empty, smaller T=1 particles. Katpally, U., Kakani, K., Reade, R., Rochon, D., Smith, T. J. (2007). Structures of T=1 and T=3 Cucumber necrosis virus particles: evidence of internal scaffolding. J. Mol. Biol. 365: 502-512.

Click to view full-size image…