Cell Res: Breakthrough! Chinese scientists have unveiled the atomic structure of the first EB virus nuclear shell.

August 15, 2020 // -- In a recent study published in the international journal Cell Research, scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Medicine of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Sun Yat-sen University analyzed the first complete atomic model of the EBV nuclear casing through a joint study.
Like other herpes viruses, EBV, as a member of the herpes virus subsoil, has a typical three-layer structure, i.e. outer lipid double-layered membrane, kernel shell and intermediate membrane structure, the assembly of the nuclear shell is a key step in the formation of infectious virus particles, therefore, revealing the mechanism of EBV shell assembly or is expected to help design new antiviral drugs.
photo source: Li, Z., et al. Cell Res (2020). doi:10.1038/s41422-020-0363-0 As the first tumor virus to be discovered, EBV is one of the most important human herpes viruses that infects more than 90% of the world's population and is closely related to the occurrence of a variety of malignancies, including Hodgkin's lymphoma and Burkett's lymphatic Tumors, NK/T cell lymphoma and nasopharyngeal cancer, etc.; compared to the medical importance of EBV, the study of its structure and function is largely hampered by the difficulty of sample preparation, which lags far behind other human herpes viruses, such as human cytokine virus (HCMV), herpes simplex virus (HSV) and Kaposi sarcoma-related herpes virus (KSHV).
By developing a new virus growth strategy and using cryoelectrometer technology, researchers can obtain high-quality virus samples of EBV, and then they can determine the high-resolution structure of the EBV nuclear shell and the first complete atomic model derived from it, which includes twenty-faced crusts, crust-related skin complexes (CATCs) and twewevigic portal structures (viral genomic transtation devices). in
article, the researchers described the interactions between EBV shell proteins, CATC and shells, portal structures and shells, portal structures, and viral genomes, which may provide a critical structural basis for later scientists to develop antiviral drugs.
In addition, by structurally comparing EBV nuclear casings with other herpes virus similarity, the researchers found that the flexibility of the five neighbors, the number of copies of the virus and the pattern of binding between CATCs and the top corner of the virus's shell may be different between different herpes viruses, and this is also related to the size of the packaged genome.
based on the results of this paper, the researchers proposed a new stress-regulating mechanism that could help explain how the herpes virus achieves a dynamic balance between virus genome retention and excreation.
() Original source: Li, Z., Zhang, X., Dong, L. et al. CryoEM structure of the tegumented capsid of Epstein-Barr virus. Cell Res (2020). doi:10.1038/s41422-020-0363-0.