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Updated: Aug 16, 2026

Microcrystallography of Protein Crystals and In Cellulo Diffraction
Published on: July 21, 2017
Crystal lattice as biological phenotype for insect viruses
Karin Anduleit1, Geoff Sutton, Jonathan M Diprose
1Division of Structural Biology, The Henry Wellcome Building for Genomic Medicine, University of Oxford, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK.
Abstract:
Many insect viruses survive for long periods by occlusion within robust crystalline polyhedra composed primarily of a single polyhedrin protein. We show that two different virus families form polyhedra which, despite lack of sequence similarity in the virally encoded polyhedrin protein, have identical cell constants and a body-centered cubic lattice. It is almost inconceivable that this could have arisen by chance, suggesting that the crystal lattice has been preserved because it is particularly well-suited to its function of packaging and protecting viruses.
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