This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. We study the structure of viruses and their components. We are interested in the assembly pathways and the way the viruses recognize, enter and infect their host. Thus we also study complexes of viruses with their cellular receptors or with neutralizing antibodies. We make extensive use of electron microscopy to study viruses, or fragments of viruses, that cannot be crystalized. The relatively low resolution maps can be augmented by crystallographic studies of the viral protein components. Eukaryotic viruses: 1. West Nile virus (Mukhopadhyay et al Science 2003, 302, 248, see attached pdf) Small crystals available, but until the BSL3 facility is ready we do not know the diffraction quality> If successful, this will be probably be the first study of a membrane containing eukaryotic virus. 2. Bombyx mori densovirus (parvoviridae). An insect virus that might be useful as an insecticide. We have crystyals that diffract to about 3.5A. Probably triclinic 3. Sindbis virus (Zhang et al J.Virol 2002, 76, 11128-11132). only small very poorly diffracting crystals available at this time. 4. protein components of viruses such as the E2 protein of sindbis virus, the E protein of various flavi viruses (Background in Y. Zhang, Structure 2004, submitted). 5. Ligands that bind to the viruses we are studying such as the polio virus receptor (Background in He et al J. Virol, 2003, 77, 4827-4835) 6. Virally expressed enzymes. e.g. pestivirus polymerase (Choi et al PNAS 2002,101,4425-4430 Prokaryotic viruses 1. Structural components of T4 bacteriophage. There are about 50 structural proteins. We have solved about 10 of these so far (Kostyuchenko et al Nat.Struct.Bio.2003,10, 688-693) 2. and other projects, but no space.
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