Complementary approaches to structure determination of icosahedral viruses
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Published on: October 21, 2014
1Department of Molecular Biology and Center for Integrative Molecular Biosciences, The Scripps Research Institute, MB-31, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
Abstract:
Few biological macromolecular complexes exhibit the combination of massive size and hierarchical, symmetrical architecture embodied in icosahedral viruses. X-ray crystallography, electron cryomicroscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering provide complementary approaches to studying these remarkable structures. Through a combined approach, progress has been made towards providing detailed structures of highly complex and very large viruses, and towards imaging the dynamic structural changes performed by viruses at key stages in their life cycles.
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