Interpretation of electron micrographs of adenovirus hexon arrays using a crystallographic molecular model.

Two types of two-dimensional arrays of purified adenovirus type 2 hexon have been obtained and analyzed by Fourier filtration of their electron micrographs. One array contained continuously close-packed hexons, distributed on a hexagonal p3 lattice, with a unit cell dimension of 94 +/- 2 A. The other array contained close-packed hexons with a regular absence, so that rings of six hexons related by sixfold symmetry formed a p6 unit cell. The cell dimension of the hexagonal array was 153 +/- 3 A, with neighboring hexons separated by 88 +/- 2 A. Smaller p6 arrays were also formed by hexons freed from complete virions on the microscope grid by treatment with distilled water. A molecular model of hexon, known from the X-ray crystallographic structure, was used to interpret Fourier-filtered images of the arrays, and to determine the relative orientations of the hexon molecules. The hexon-hexon interaction in the p3 array is that found in the virion facet, whereas that in the p6 array is a planar form of the interaction between peripentonal hexons around the vertex.