Funding Organization(s): National Institutes of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIH/NIGMS), National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIH/NIDCR), National Institutes of Health/National Institute Of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH/NIAID), National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI), Other government, National Institutes of Health/National Center for Research Resources (NIH/NCRR), National Science Foundation (NSF, United States)
Primary Citation of Related Structures:   6PPB, 6PPD, 6PPH, 6PPI
PubMed Abstract: 
Assembly of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) begins at a bacteriophage-like portal complex that nucleates formation of an icosahedral capsid with capsid-associated tegument complexes (CATCs) and facilitates translocation of an ∼150-kb dsDNA genome, followed by acquisition of a pleomorphic tegument and envelope ...
Assembly of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) begins at a bacteriophage-like portal complex that nucleates formation of an icosahedral capsid with capsid-associated tegument complexes (CATCs) and facilitates translocation of an ∼150-kb dsDNA genome, followed by acquisition of a pleomorphic tegument and envelope. Because of deviation from icosahedral symmetry, KSHV portal and tegument structures have largely been obscured in previous studies. Using symmetry-relaxed cryo-EM, we determined the in situ structure of the KSHV portal and its interactions with surrounding capsid proteins, CATCs, and the terminal end of KSHV's dsDNA genome. Our atomic models of the portal and capsid/CATC, together with visualization of CATCs' variable occupancy and alternate orientation of CATC-interacting vertex triplexes, suggest a mechanism whereby the portal orchestrates procapsid formation and asymmetric long-range determination of CATC attachment during DNA packaging prior to pleomorphic tegumentation/envelopment. Structure-based mutageneses confirm that a triplex deep binding groove for CATCs is a hotspot that holds promise for antiviral development.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. Electronic address: hong.zhou@ucla.edu.