Whole Cell Cryo-Electron Tomography Reveals Distinct Disassembly Intermediates of Vaccinia Virus
Open Access
- 9 May 2007
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 2 (5), e420
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000420
Abstract
At each round of infection, viruses fall apart to release their genome for replication, and then reassemble into stable particles within the same host cell. For most viruses, the structural details that underlie these disassembly and assembly reactions are poorly understood. Cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), a unique method to investigate large and asymmetric structures at the near molecular resolution, was previously used to study the complex structure of vaccinia virus (VV). Here we study the disassembly of VV by cryo-ET on intact, rapidly frozen, mammalian cells, infected for up to 60 minutes. Binding to the cell surface induced distinct structural rearrangements of the core, such as a shape change, the rearrangement of its surface spikes and de-condensation of the viral DNA. We propose that the cell surface induced changes, in particular the decondensation of the viral genome, are a prerequisite for the subsequent release of the vaccinia DNA into the cytoplasm, which is followed by its cytoplasmic replication. Generally, this is the first study that employs whole cell cryo-ET to address structural details of pathogen-host cell interaction.Keywords
This publication has 46 references indexed in Scilit:
- Entry of the vaccinia virus intracellular mature virion and its interactions with glycosaminoglycansJournal of General Virology, 2005
- A voyage to the inner space of cellsProtein Science, 2005
- Relationship between Vaccinia Virus Intracellular Cores, Early mRNAs, and DNA Replication SitesJournal of Virology, 2002
- Assembly of vaccinia virus revisited: de novo membrane synthesis or acquisition from the host?Trends in Microbiology, 2002
- Structure and Assembly of Intracellular Mature Vaccinia Virus: Thin-Section AnalysesJournal of Virology, 2001
- The EM Program Package: A Platform for Image Processing in Biological Electron MicroscopyJournal of Structural Biology, 1996
- Assembly of vaccinia virus: role of the intermediate compartment between the endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi stacks.The Journal of cell biology, 1993
- Cryo-electron microscopy of virusesNature, 1984
- The Mode of Entry of Vaccinia Virus into L CellsJournal of General Virology, 1973
- The intracellular uncoating of poxvirus DNAJournal of Molecular Biology, 1964