A charged performance by gp17 in viral packaging.

Williams, R Scott; Williams, Gareth J; Tainer, John A · Cell · 2008

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Packaging of viral genomes into virus capsids requires powerful motors to overcome the repulsive force that builds as the nucleic acids are compressed. Through structural analyses of the T4 bacteriophage packaging motor gp17, Sun et al. (2008) now propose a packaging mechanism in which electrostatic forces cause the motor to alternate between tensed and relaxed conformational states.

Medical subject headings