| Literature DB >> 25350719 |
Juha T Huiskonen1, Marie-Laure Parsy2, Sai Li2, David Bitto2, Max Renner2, Thomas A Bowden2.
Abstract
Enveloped viruses utilize membrane glycoproteins on their surface to mediate entry into host cells. Three-dimensional structural analysis of these glycoprotein 'spikes' is often technically challenging but important for understanding viral pathogenesis and in drug design. Here, a protocol is presented for viral spike structure determination through computational averaging of electron cryo-tomography data. Electron cryo-tomography is a technique in electron microscopy used to derive three-dimensional tomographic volume reconstructions, or tomograms, of pleomorphic biological specimens such as membrane viruses in a near-native, frozen-hydrated state. These tomograms reveal structures of interest in three dimensions, albeit at low resolution. Computational averaging of sub-volumes, or sub-tomograms, is necessary to obtain higher resolution detail of repeating structural motifs, such as viral glycoprotein spikes. A detailed computational approach for aligning and averaging sub-tomograms using the Jsubtomo software package is outlined. This approach enables visualization of the structure of viral glycoprotein spikes to a resolution in the range of 20-40 Å and study of the study of higher order spike-to-spike interactions on the virion membrane. Typical results are presented for Bunyamwera virus, an enveloped virus from the family Bunyaviridae. This family is a structurally diverse group of pathogens posing a threat to human and animal health.Entities:
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Year: 2014 PMID: 25350719 PMCID: PMC4353292 DOI: 10.3791/51714
Source DB: PubMed Journal: J Vis Exp ISSN: 1940-087X Impact factor: 1.355
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| Voltage (kV) | 300 |
| Calibrated magnification (X) | 111,000 |
| Pixel size (Å) | 5.4 |
| Estimated dose (e–/ Å2) | 100 |
| Underfocus (μm) | 4.0–4.5 |
| First CTF zero (Å)a | 26–30 |
| Tilt range (°) | –60–60 |
| Tilt sampling (°) | 3 |
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| Tomograms | 11 |
| Virions | 29 |
| Seeds per virion | 106 |
| Total number of seeds | 3,074 |
| Spikes detected | 1,346 |
| Spikes after removing overlaps | 1,401 |
| Spikes after cross-correlation based selection | 1,022 |
| Spikes included in the final average | 1,022 |
| Symmetry | C3 |
| Angular sampling (°) | 8 |
| Resolution range used in the refinement (Å) | 42–334 |
| Final resolution estimate (Å)b | 35 |