Modeling the helicase domain of Brome mosaic virus 1a replicase

Brome mosaic virus (BMV) is a representative member of positive-strand RNA viruses. The 1a replicase from BMV is a membrane protein of unknown structure with a methyltransferase N-terminal domain and a putative helicase activity in the C-terminal domain. In order to make a functional prediction of the helicase activity of the BMV 1a C-terminal domain, we have built a model of its structure. The use of fold recognition servers hinted at two different superfamilies of helicases [superfamily 1 (SF1) and superfamily 2 (SF2)] as putative templates for the C-terminal fragment of BMV 1a. A structural model of BMV 1a in SF2 was obtained by means of a fold recognition server (3D-PSSM). On the other hand, we used the helicase motifs described in the literature to construct a model of the structure of the BMV 1a C-terminal domain as a member of the SF1. The biological functionality and statistic potentials were used to discriminate between the two models. The results illustrate that the use of sequence profiles and patterns helps modeling. Accordingly, the C-terminal domain of BMV 1a is a potential member of the SF1 of helicases, and it can be modeled with the structure of a member of the UvrD family of helicases. The helicase mechanism was corroborated by the model and this supports the hypothesis that BMV 1a should have helicase activity.