title: Three-dimensional structure of the human herpesvirus 8 capsid.
abstract: Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8), or Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, is a gammaherpesvirus implicated in all forms of Kaposi's sarcoma and certain lymphomas. HHV-8 has been extensively characterized, both biochemically and immunologically, since its first description in 1994. However, its three-dimensional (3D) structure remained heretofore undetermined largely due to difficulties in viral purification. We have used log-phase cultures of body cavity-based lymphoma 1 cells induced with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate to obtain HHV-8 capsids for electron cryomicroscopy and computer reconstruction. The 3D structure of the HHV-8 capsids revealed a capsid shell composed of 12 pentons, 150 hexons, and 320 triplexes arranged on a T=16 icosahedral lattice. This structure is similar to those of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), which are prototypical members of alpha- and betaherpesviruses, respectively. The inner radius of the HHV-8 capsid is identical to that of the HSV-1 capsid but is smaller than that of the HCMV capsid, which is consistent with the relative sizes of the genomes they enclose. While the HHV-8 capsid exhibits many structural similarities to the HSV-1 capsid, our reconstruction shows two major differences: its hexons lack the "horn-shaped" VP26 densities bound to the HSV-1 hexon subunits, and the HHV-8 triplexes appear smaller and less elongated than those of HSV-1. These differences are in excellent agreement with our sequence comparisons of HHV-8 and HSV-1 capsid proteins. This gammaherpesvirus capsid structure complements previous structural studies on alpha- and betaherpesviruses in providing an account of structural similarities and differences among capsids representing all human herpesvirus subfamilies.
authors.affiliation: Viral and Rickettsial Disease Laboratory, Division of Communicable Disease Control, California Department of Health Services, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lo
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: J K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Stoops
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Forghani
authors.forename: Z H
authors.initials: ZH
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D002213:Capsid / Q000737:chemistry*; D018259:Herpesvirus 1, Human / Q000737:chemistry; D019288:Herpesvirus 8, Human / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid