The Molecular Basis for Flexibility in the Flexible Filamentous Plant Viruses

Flexible filamentous plant viruses cause more than half the viral crop damage in the world, but are also potentially useful for application in agriculture and biotechnology. In collaboration with Dr. Yau-Heiu Hsu and Dr. Edward H. Egelman, we used cryoelectron microscopy, captured the images by a direct electron detector, and followed by 3D reconstruction using Iterative Helical Real Space Reconstruction (IHRSR) software, we determined the first near atomic structural model of local filamentous flexible virus, Bamboo mosaic virus (BaMV), at 5.6Å resolution. The structural model of BaMV shows that the capsid protein subunits are left-handed and loosely packed. Its N terminus is well exposed and the C terminus is pointing toward the center of the virion. This new finding not only provides insight into filamentous virus assembly and structural stability but also can be further applied to both biotechnology (for the design of vaccines and protein carriers) and nanotechnology.