Maturation dynamics of bacteriophage HK97 capsid

Maturation of the bacteriophage HK97 capsid requires a large conformational change of the virus capsid. Experimental studies have identified several intermediates along this maturation pathway. To gain insights into the molecular mechanisms of capsid maturation, we examined the fluctuation dynamics of the procapsid and mature capsid using a residue-level computational approach. The most cooperative motions of the procapsid are found to be consistent with the observed change in configuration that takes place during maturation. A few dominant modes of motion are sufficient to describe the anisotropic expansion that accompanies maturation. Based upon these modes, maturation is proposed to occur via an overall expansion and reconfiguration of the capsid initiated by puckering of the pentamers, followed by flattening and crosslinking of the hexameric subunits, and finally crosslinking of the pentameric subunits. The highly mobile E loops are stabilized by anchoring to highly stable residues belonging to neighboring subunits.