Hepatitis E virus (HEV), a small, non-enveloped RNA virus in the familyHepeviridae, is associated with endemic and epidemic acute viral hepatitis in developing countries. Our 3.5-Å structure of a HEV-like particle (VLP) shows that each capsid protein contains 3 linear domains that form distinct structural elements: S, the continuous capsid; P1, 3-fold protrusions; and P2, 2-fold spikes. The S domain adopts a jelly-roll fold commonly observed in small RNA viruses. The P1 and P2 domains both adopt ␤-barrel folds. Each domain possesses a potential polysaccharide-binding site that may function in cell-receptor binding. Sugar binding to P1 at the capsid protein interface may lead to capsid disassembly and cell entry. Structural modeling indicates that native T ‫؍‬ 3 capsid contains flat dimers, with less curvature than those of T ‫؍‬ 1 VLP. Our findings significantly advance the understanding of HEV molecular biology and have application to the development of vaccines and antiviral medications.capsid ͉ HEV V iral hepatitis is principally caused by 5 distinct viruses named hepatitis A-E. Despite their similar names, the 5 viruses are unrelated, and they have totally different genome structures with distinct replication mechanisms. Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is responsible for endemic hepatitis as well as sporadic epidemics of acute, enterically transmitted hepatitis in the developing world, including parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Mexico (1, 2). HEV accounts for more than 50% of acute viral hepatitides in young adults in these regions, with a case fatality of 1-2% in regular patients and up to 20% in pregnant women.Given the lack of a robust cell culture system, and because HEV is not closely related to any other well-characterized virus, little is known about the molecular biology of HEV or its strategy for replication (1). HEV is a small, non-enveloped virus with a 7.2 kb, positive-sense RNA genome. Its genomic RNA is polyadenylated and contains 3 ORFs. Located near the 5Ј-end, ORF1 encodes a non-structural polyprotein with multiple functional domains, including those for methyltransferase, protease, helicase, and polymerase. The viral capsid protein (CP) is encoded by ORF2 near the 3Ј-end. ORF3, which partially overlaps with the other 2 ORFs, codes for an immunogenic protein of unknown function. HEV was originally classified in the Caliciviridae family because of its structural similarity to other caliciviruses; however, it is now the sole member of the Hepeviridae family. The genomic RNA of HEV exhibits several distinct features compared to the genomic RNA of caliciviruses, including a methylated cap at the 5Ј-end and an ORF1 with functional domains arranged in a different order (1, 3).Previous studies of HEV assembly have primarily focused on the overexpression of viral proteins. The ORF2 capsid protein, HEV-CP, contains a total of 660 amino acid residues. At the HEV-CP N terminus is a signal peptide followed by an arginine-rich domain that potentially play a role in viral RNA encapsidation during assem...

The Bunyaviridae family is comprised of a large number of negative-sense, single-stranded RNA viruses that infect animals, insects, and plants. The tripartite genome of bunyaviruses, encapsidated in the form of individual ribonucleoprotein complexes, encodes four structural proteins, the glycoproteins Gc and Gn, the nucleoprotein N, and the viral polymerase L. Some bunyaviruses also use an ambi-sense strategy to encode the nonstructural proteins NSs and NSm. While some bunyaviruses have a T = 12 icosahedral symmetry, others only have locally ordered capsids, or capsids with no detectable symmetry. Bunyaviruses enter cells through clathrin-mediated endocytosis or phagocytosis. In endosome, viral glycoproteins facilitate membrane fusion at acidic pH, thus allowing bunyaviruses to uncoat and deliver their genomic RNA into host cytoplasm. Bunyaviruses replicate in cytoplasm where the viral polymerase L catalyzes both transcription and replication of the viral genome. While transcription requires a cap primer for initiation and ends at specific termination signals before the 3' end of the template is reached, replication copies the entire template and does not depend on any primer for initiation. This review will discuss some of the most interesting aspects of bunyavirus replication, including L protein/N protein-mediated cap snatching, prime-and-realign for transcription and replication initiation, translation-coupled transcription, sequence/secondary structure-dependent transcription termination, ribonucleoprotein encapsidation, and N protein-mediated initiation of viral protein translation. Recent developments on the structure and functional characterization of the bunyavirus capsid and the RNA synthesis machineries (including both protein L and N) will also be discussed.

Influenza A virions contain eight ribonucleoproteins (RNPs), each comprised of a negative-strand viral RNA, the viral polymerase, and multiple nucleoproteins (NPs) that coat the viral RNA. NP oligomerization along the viral RNA is mediated largely by a 28-amino-acid tail loop. Influenza viral RNPs, which serve as the templates for viral RNA synthesis in the nuclei of infected cells, are not linear but rather are organized in hairpin-like double-helical structures. Here we present results that strongly support a coherent model for the assembly of the double-helical influenza virus RNP structure. First, we show that NP self-associates much more weakly in the absence of RNA than in its presence, indicating that oligomerization is very limited in the cytoplasm. We also show that once NP has oligomerized, it can dissociate in the absence of bound RNA, but only at a very slow rate, indicating that the NP scaffold remains intact when viral RNA dissociates from NPs to interact with the polymerase during viral RNA synthesis. In addition, we identify a previously unknown NP-NP interface that is likely responsible for organizing the double-helical viral RNP structure. This identification stemmed from our observation that NP lacking the oligomerization tail loop forms monomers and dimers. We determined the crystal structure of this NP dimer, which reveals this new NP-NP interface. Mutation of residues that disrupt this dimer interface does not affect oligomerization of NPs containing the tail loop but does inactivate the ability of NPs containing the tail loop to support viral RNA synthesis in minigenome assays.IMPORTANCE  Influenza A virus, the causative agent of human pandemics and annual epidemics, contains eight RNA gene segments. Each RNA segment assumes the form of a rod-shaped, double-helical ribonucleoprotein (RNP) that contains multiple copies of a viral protein, the nucleoprotein (NP), which coats the RNA segment along its entire length. Previous studies showed that NP molecules can polymerize via a structural element called the tail loop, but the RNP assembly process is poorly understood. Here we show that influenza virus RNPs are likely assembled from NP monomers, which polymerize through the tail loop only in the presence of viral RNA. Using X-ray crystallography, we identified an additional way that NP molecules interact with each other. We hypothesize that this new interaction is responsible for organizing linear, single-stranded influenza virus RNPs into double-helical structures. Our results thus provide a coherent model for the assembly of the double-helical influenza virus RNP structure.

The influenza A virus polymerase consists of three subunits (PA, PB1, and PB2) necessary for viral RNA synthesis. The heterotrimeric polymerase complex forms through PA interacting with PB1 and PB1 interacting with PB2. PA has been shown to play critical roles in the assembly, catalysis, and nuclear localization of the polymerase. To probe the structure of PA, we isolated recombinant PA from insect cells. Limited proteolysis revealed that PA contained two domains connected by a 20-residue linker (residues 257-276). Far-UV circular dichroism established that the two domains folded into a mixed alpha/beta structure when separately expressed. In vitro pull-down assays showed that neither individually nor cooperatively expressed PA domains, without the linker, could assure PA-PB1 interaction. Protease treatment of PA-PB1 complex indicated that its PA subunit was significantly more stable than free PA, suggesting that the linker is protected and it constitutes an essential component of the PA-PB1 interface.

Most dsRNA viruses have a genome-enclosing capsid that comprises 120 copies of a single coat protein (CP). These 120 CP subunits are arranged as asymmetrical dimers that surround the icosahedral fivefold axes, forming pentamers of dimers that are thought to be assembly intermediates. This scheme is violated, however, in recent structures of two dsRNA viruses, a fungal virus from family Partitiviridae and a rabbit virus from family Picobirnaviridae, both of which have 120 CP subunits organized as dimers of quasisymmetrical dimers. In this study, we report the CP backbone trace of a second fungal partitivirus, determined in this case by electron cryomicroscopy and homology modeling. This virus also exhibits quasisymmetrical CP dimers that are connected by prominent surface arches and stabilized by domain swapping between the two CP subunits. The CP fold is dominated by alpha-helices, although beta-strands mediate several important contacts. A dimer-of-dimers assembly intermediate is again implicated. The disordered N-terminal tail of each CP subunit protrudes into the particle interior and likely interacts with the genome during packaging and/or transcription. These results broaden our understanding of conserved and variable aspects of partitivirus structure and reflect the growing use of electron cryomicroscopy for atomic modeling of protein folds.

Virus 3D atomic structures provide insight into our understanding of viral life cycles and the development of antiviral drugs. X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM have been used to determine the atomic structure of viruses. However, limited availability of biological samples, biosafety issues due to virus infection, and sometimes inherent characteristics of viruses, pose difficulties on combining both methods in determining viral structures. These have made solving the high resolution structure of some medically important viruses very challenging. Here, we describe our recently employed protocols for determining the high-resolution structure of the virus-like particle of hepatitis E virus (HEV), a pathogen of viral hepatitis in human. These protocols include utilizing recombinant baculovirus system to generate sufficient amount of virus particles, single-particle cryo-EM to get an intermediate resolution structure as a phasing model, and X-ray crystallography for final atomic structure determination. Our protocols have solved the hepatitis E virus structure to the resolution of 3.5 Å. The combined methodology is generally applicable to other human infectious viruses.

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