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Published on: May 13, 2019
Visualizing the Nucleotide Addition Cycle of Viral RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase
1Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China. wujiqin2010@163.com.
Abstract:
Viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRPs) are a class of nucleic acid polymerases bearing unique features from global architecture to catalytic mechanisms. In recent years, numerous viral RdRP crystal structures have improved the understanding of these molecular machines, in particular, for how they carry out each nucleotide addition cycle (NAC) as directed by the RNA template. This review focuses on a visual introduction of viral RdRP NAC mechanisms through a combination of static pictures of structural models, a user-friendly software-based assembly of the structural models, and two videos illustrating key conformational changes in the NAC.
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