Stabilisation of Viral Membrane Fusion Proteins in Prefusion Conformation by Structure-Based Design for Structure Determination and Vaccine Development.

ABSTRACT: The membrane surface of enveloped viruses contains dedicated proteins enabling the fusion of the viral with the host cell membrane. Working with these proteins is almost always challenging because they are membrane-embedded and naturally metastable. Fortunately, based on a range of different examples, researchers now have several possibilities to tame membrane fusion proteins, making them amenable for structure determination and immunogen generation. This review describes the structural and functional similarities of the different membrane fusion proteins and ways to exploit these features to stabilise them by targeted mutational approaches. The recent determination of two herpesvirus membrane fusion proteins in prefusion conformation holds the potential to apply similar methods to this gr

SUBMITTER: Ebel H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9415420 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature