Structures and organization of adenovirus cement proteins provide insights into the role of capsid maturation in virus entry and infection.

ABSTRACT: Adenovirus cement proteins play crucial roles in virion assembly, disassembly, cell entry, and infection. Based on a refined crystal structure of the adenovirus virion at 3.8-Å resolution, we have determined the structures of all of the cement proteins (IIIa, VI, VIII, and IX) and their organization in two distinct layers. We have significantly revised the recent cryoelectron microscopy models for proteins IIIa and IX and show that both are located on the capsid exterior. Together, the cement proteins exclusively stabilize the hexon shell, thus rendering penton vertices the weakest links of the adenovirus capsid. We describe, for the first time to our knowledge, the structure of protein VI, a key membrane-lytic molecule, and unveil its associations with VIII and core protein V, which toget

SUBMITTER: Reddy VS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4136627 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature