Rebecca Chandler-Bostock, Richard J Bingham, Sam Clark, Andrew J P Scott, Emma Wroblewski, Amy Barker, Simon J White, Eric C Dykeman, Carlos P Mata, Jen Bohon, Erik Farquhar, Reidun Twarock, Peter G Stockley
Many single-stranded, positive-sense RNA viruses regulate assembly of their infectious virions by forming multiple, cognate coat protein (CP)-genome contacts at sites termed Packaging Signals (PSs). We have determined the secondary structures of the bacteriophage MS2 ssRNA genome (gRNA) frozen in defined states using constraints from X-ray synchrotron footprinting (XRF). Comparison of the footprints from phage and transcript confirms the presence of multiple PSs in contact with CP dimers in the former. This is also true for a virus-like particle (VLP) assembled around the gRNA in vitro in the absence of the single-copy Maturation Protein (MP) found in phage...
August 20, 2022: Journal of Molecular Biology