The Crystal Structure of a Virus-like Particle from the Hyperthermophilic Archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus Provides Insight into the Evolution of Viruses

Magnetic properties of PfV encapsulating Ni ions

“…Detailed procedures of cultivation of P. furious should be referred to previous papers 4,9) . Here, it is worthwhile to notice that the full-length gene for the protein component of PfV was digested with the suitable restriction enzyme like NdeI and XhoI, and was subcloned in the expression vector pET15b to allow the carboxy-terminal domain with a histidine tag.…”

“…Some proteins can crystallize in two 3) or three 4) dimensions, and this spatial crystallization feature will work as a template in which the magnetic materials are structurally organized in two or three dimensions.…”

“…Among them, in this paper, we explore the integration of virus-like parties with the magnetic ions. Especially, we utilize Pyrococcus furious (P. furious) virus-like particle (PfV) 4,9) . PfV has an icosahedral spherical structure with a triangulation number of T = 3 as shown in Fig.…”

“…PfV is composed of 180 copies of subunit, and each subunit is the protein composed of 345 amino-acid residues. The exciting feature of PfV is the ability to crystallize in three dimensions, and the crystallization ability of PfV is not affected by the amino-terminal 109 residues of the protein components of PfV 4) . This means that even if we control the amino-terminal 109 residues of the protein components of PfV and the magnetic entity is integrated with these amino-terminals, PfV is still possible to crystallize in three dimensions.…”

The origin of modern terrestrial life

“…The concept of an ancient viral world was indeed first proposed by scientists who suggested that RNA viruses are relics of the RNA world [see, for instance (Maizels and Weiner, 1994)], and that retroviruses, with their RNA-DNA cycles, could give evidence for the transition from the RNA to the DNA world. This concept is now supported by the existence of viruses harboring homologous capsid proteins that infect cells from different domains (Archaea, Bacteria, Eukarya) (Akita et al, 2007;Bamford et al, 2005) suggesting that capsid proteins originated prior to the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). Several models have thus been recently proposed to explain the origin of viruses in the RNA world (Forterre, 2006).…”