Project description:Mumps virus (MuV) is a highly contagious pathogen, and despite extensive vaccination campaigns, outbreaks continue to occur worldwide. The virus has a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA genome that is encapsidated by the nucleocapsid protein (N) to form the nucleocapsid (NC). NC serves as the template for both transcription and replication. In this paper we solved an 18-Å-resolution structure of the authentic MuV NC using cryo-electron microscopy. We also observed the effects of phosphoprotein (P) binding on the MuV NC structure. The N-terminal domain of P (PNTD) has been shown to bind NC and appeared to induce uncoiling of the helical NC. Additionally, we solved a 25-Å-resolution structure of the authentic MuV NC bound with the C-terminal domain of P (PCTD). The location of the encapsidated viral genomic RNA was defined by modeling crystal structures of homologous negative strand RNA virus Ns in NC. Both the N-terminal and C-terminal domains of MuV P bind NC to participate in access to the genomic RNA by the viral RNA-dependent-RNA polymerase. These results provide critical insights on the structure-function of the MuV NC and the structural alterations that occur through its interactions with P.
Project description:In a negative-strand RNA virus, the genomic RNA is sequestered inside the nucleocapsid when the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase uses it as the template for viral RNA synthesis. It must require a conformational change in the nucleocapsid protein (N) to make the RNA accessible to the viral polymerase during this process. The structure of an empty mumps virus (MuV) nucleocapsid-like particle was determined to 10.4-Å resolution by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) image reconstruction. By modeling the crystal structure of parainfluenza virus 5 into the density, it was shown that the ?-helix close to the RNA became flexible when RNA was removed. Point mutations in this helix resulted in loss of polymerase activities. Since the core of N is rigid in the nucleocapsid, we suggest that interactions between this region of the mumps virus N and its polymerase, instead of large N domain rotations, lead to exposure of the sequestered genomic RNA. IMPORTANCE Mumps virus (MuV) infection may cause serious diseases, including hearing loss, orchitis, oophoritis, mastitis, and pancreatitis. MuV is a negative-strand RNA virus, similar to rabies virus or Ebola virus, that has a unique mechanism of viral RNA synthesis. They all make their own RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). The viral RdRp uses the genomic RNA inside the viral nucleocapsid as the template to synthesize viral RNAs. Since the template RNA is always sequestered in the nucleocapsid, the viral RdRp must find a way to open it up in order to gain access to the covered template. Our work reported here shows that a helix structural element in the MuV nucleocapsid protein becomes open when the sequestered RNA is released. The amino acids related to this helix are required for RdRp to synthesize viral RNA. We propose that the viral RdRp pulls this helix open to release the genomic RNA.
Project description:Using a new Titan Krios stage equipped with a single-axis holder, we developed two methods to accelerate the collection of tilt-series. We demonstrate a continuous-tilting method that can record a tilt-series in seconds, but with loss of details finer than ?4?nm. We also demonstrate a fast-incremental method that can record a tilt-series several-fold faster than current methods and with similar resolution. We characterize the utility of both methods in real biological electron cryotomography workflows. We identify opportunities for further improvements in hardware and software and speculate on the impact such advances could have on structural biology.
Project description:We report an analysis of the interaction between the P protein and the RNA-associated N protein (N-RNA) for both measles and mumps viruses with proteins produced in a bacterial expression system. During this study, we verified that the C-terminal tail of the N protein is not required for nucleocapsid formation. For both measles and mumps virus N, truncated proteins encompassing amino acids 1 to 375 assemble into nucleocapsid-like particles within the bacterial cell. For measles virus N, the binding site for the P protein maps to residues 477 to 505 within the tail of the molecule, a sequence relatively conserved among the morbilliviruses. For mumps virus N, a binding site for the P protein maps to the assembly domain of N (residues 1 to 398), while no strong binding of the P protein to the tail of N was detected. These results suggest that the site of attachment for the polymerase varies among the paramyxoviruses. Pulldown experiments demonstrate that the last 50 amino acids of both measles virus and mumps virus P (measles virus P, 457 to 507; mumps virus P, 343 to 391) by themselves constitute the nucleocapsid-binding domain (NBD). Spectroscopic studies show that the NBD is predominantly alpha-helical in both viruses. However, only in measles virus P is the NBD stable and folded, having a lesser degree of tertiary organization in mumps virus P. With isothermal titration calorimetry, we demonstrate that the measles virus P NBD binds to residues 477 to 505 of measles virus N with 1:1 stoichiometry. The dissociation constant (K(d)) was determined to be 13 microM at 20 degrees C and 35 microM at 37 degrees C. Our data are consistent with a model in which an alpha-helical nucleocapsid binding domain, located at the C terminus of P, is responsible for tethering the viral polymerase to its template yet also suggest that, in detail, polymerase binding in morbilliviruses and rubulaviruses differs significantly.
Project description:Automated tomographic reconstruction is now possible in the IMOD software package, including the merging of tomograms taken around two orthogonal axes. Several developments enable the production of high-quality tomograms. When using fiducial markers for alignment, the markers to be tracked through the series are chosen automatically; if there is an excess of markers available, a well-distributed subset is selected that is most likely to track well. Marker positions are refined by applying an edge-enhancing Sobel filter, which results in a 20% improvement in alignment error for plastic-embedded samples and 10% for frozen-hydrated samples. Robust fitting, in which outlying points are given less or no weight in computing the fitting error, is used to obtain an alignment solution, so that aberrant points from the automated tracking can have little effect on the alignment. When merging two dual-axis tomograms, the alignment between them is refined from correlations between local patches; a measure of structure was developed so that patches with insufficient structure to give accurate correlations can now be excluded automatically. We have also developed a script for running all steps in the reconstruction process with a flexible mechanism for setting parameters, and we have added a user interface for batch processing of tilt series to the Etomo program in IMOD. Batch processing is fully compatible with interactive processing and can increase efficiency even when the automation is not fully successful, because users can focus their effort on the steps that require manual intervention.