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Published Online May 18, 2006
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1127981

Reports

Submitted on ,
Accepted on May 5, 2006

The Structure of an Infectious p22 Virion Shows the Signal for Headful DNA Packaging

Gabriel C. Lander 1, Liang Tang 2, Sherwood R. Casjens 3, Eddie B. Gilcrease 3, Peter Prevelige 4, Anton Poliakov 4, Clinton S. Potter 5, Bridget Carragher 6, John E. Johnson 2*

1 Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA; National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy, Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
2 Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
3 Department of Pathology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
4 Department of Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
5 National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy, Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
6 National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy, Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
John E. Johnson , E-mail: jackj{at}scripps.edu

Bacteriophages, herpesviruses and other large dsDNA viruses contain molecular machines that pump DNA into preassembled procapsids, generating internal capsid pressures exceeding, by 10-fold, that of bottled champagne. A 17 angstrom resolution asymmetric reconstruction of the infectious P22 virion reveals that tightly spooled DNA about the portal dodecamer forces a conformation that is significantly different from that observed in isolated portals assembled from ectopically expressed protein. We propose that the tight dsDNA spooling activates the switch that signals the headful chromosome packing density to the particle exterior.


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