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Summary Mature HIV-1 particles contain conical-shaped capsids that enclose the viral RNA genome and perform essential functions in the virus life cycle. Previous structural analysis of two and three-dimensional arrays provided a molecular model of the capsid protein (CA) hexamer and revealed three interfaces. Here, we present a cryoEM study of a tubular assembly of CA and a high-resolution NMR structure of the CA C-terminal domain (CTD) dimer. In the solution dimer structure, the monomers exhibit different relative orientations compared to previous X-ray structures. The solution structure fits extremely well into the EM density map, suggesting that the dimer interface is retained in the assembled CA. We also identified a novel CTD-CTD interface at the local three-fold axis in the cryoEM map and confirmed its functional importance by mutagenesis. In the tubular assembly, CA intermolecular interfaces vary slightly, accommodating the asymmetry present in tubes. This provides the necessary plasticity to allow for controlled virus capsid dis/assembly.

We report the size-controlled self-assembly of polymersomes through the cooperative self-assembly of nanoparticles and amphiphilic polymers. Polymersomes densely packed with magnetic nanoparticles in the polymersome membrane (magneto-polymersome) were fabricated with a series of different sized iron oxide nanoparticles. The distribution of nanoparticles in a polymersome membrane was size-dependent; while small nanoparticles were dispersed in a polymer bilayer, large particles formed well-ordered superstructure at the interface between the inner and outer layer of a bilayer membrane. The yield of magneto-polymersomes increased with increasing the diameter of incorporated nanoparticles. Moreover, the size of polymersomes was effectively controlled by varying the size of incorporated nanoparticles. This size-dependent self-assembly was attributed to the polymer chain entropy effect and the size-dependent localization of nanoparticles in polymersome bilayers. The transverse relaxation rates (r2) of magneto-polymersomes increased with increasing the nanoparticle diameter and decreasing the size of polymersomes, reaching 555 ± 24 s−1mM−1 for 241 ± 16 nm polymersomes, which is the highest value reported to date for superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles.

SUMMARY Cryo-electron tomography (cryoET) allows 3D visualization of cellular structures at molecular resolution in a close-to-native state, and therefore has the potential to help elucidate early events of HIV-1 infection in host cells. However, direct observation of structural details of infecting HIV-1 has not been realized due to technological challenges in working with rare and dynamic HIV-1 particles in human cells. Here, we report structural analysis of HIV-1 and host-cell interactions by developing a correlative high-speed 3D live-cell imaging and cryoET method. Using this methodology, we showed, for the first time under near-native conditions, that intact hyperstable mutant HIV-1 cores are released into the cytoplasm of host-cells. We further obtained direct evidence to suggest that a hyperstable mutant capsid, E45A, delayed capsid disassembly compared to the wild-type capsid. Together, these results demonstrate the advantage of our correlative live-cell and cryoET approach to image dynamic processes, such as viral infection.

Before ER tubule fusion, the atlastin GTPase undergoes a “prefusion” to “postfusion” conformational change that is mediated by an intramolecular salt bridge.