Novel inter-subunit contacts in barley stripe mosaic virus revealed by cryo-em
Structure:
Barley stripe mosaic virus narrow. Chain: a. Engineered: yes. Other_details: only contains residues 3-131 and 148-193 in structure. RNA. Chain: r. Engineered: yes
Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV, genus Hordeivirus) is a rod-shaped
single-stranded RNA virus similar to viruses of the structurally characterized
and well-studied genus Tobamovirus. Here we report the first high-resolution
structure of BSMV at 4.1 Å obtained by cryo-electron microscopy. We discovered
that BSMV forms two types of virion that differ in the number of coat protein
(CP) subunits per turn and interactions between the CP subunits. While BSMV and
tobacco mosaic virus CP subunits have a similar fold and interact with RNA using
conserved residues, the axial contacts between the CP of these two viral groups
are considerably different. BSMV CP subunits lack substantial axial contacts and
are held together by a previously unobserved lateral contact formed at the
virion surface via an interacting loop, which protrudes from the CP hydrophobic
core to the adjacent CP subunit. These data provide an insight into diversity in
structural organization of helical viruses.