Structure
| Tobacco mosaic virus coat protein | |
|---|---|
| A monomeric unit of the tobacco mosaic virus coat protein. | |
| Identifiers | |
| Symbol | CP |
| Entrez | 1494073 |
| UniProt | P03579 |
| Other data | |
Tobacco mosaic virus has a rod-like appearance. Its capsid is made from 2130 molecules of coat protein (see image to the left) and one molecule of genomic single strand RNA 6400 bases long. The coat protein self-assembles into the rod like helical structure (16.3 proteins per helix turn) around the RNA which forms a hairpin loop structure (see the electron micrograph above). The protein monomer consists of 158 amino acids which are assembled into four main alpha-helices, which are joined by a prominent loop proximal to the axis of the virion. Virions are ~300 nm in length and ~18 nm in diameter. Negatively stained electron microphotographs show a distinct inner channel of ~4 nm. The RNA is located at a radius of ~6 nm and is protected from the action of cellular enzymes by the coat protein. There are three RNA nucleotides per protein monomer. X-ray fiber diffraction structure of the intact virus was studied based on an electron density map at 3.6 Å resolution.
Read more about this topic: Tobacco Mosaic Virus
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“A special feature of the structure of our book is the monstrous but perfectly organic part that eavesdropping plays in it.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Just as a new scientific discovery manifests something that was already latent in the order of nature, and at the same time is logically related to the total structure of the existing science, so the new poem manifests something that was already latent in the order of words.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)