title: The truncated virus-like particles of C6/36 cell densovirus: implications for the assembly mechanism of brevidensovirus.
abstract: The brevidensovirus is one of the smallest viruses in the world and the capsid of Aedes albopictus C6/36 cell densovirus (C6/36DNV) is the simplest and most compact capsid in brevidensovirus. To understand the assembly mechanism of icosahedral-virus capsid from this simplest model, we tried to express various lengths of virus proteins (VPs) of C6/36DNV in Bac-to-Bac system and evaluate their self-assembly capacities in insect Spodoptera frugiperda 9 (Sf9) cells. The result showed that the N-terminal GGSG sequence (residue 23-26), highly conserved glycine-rich region in Parvoviridae, and C-terminal GTGGVVTCMP (residue 344-353) were essential for capsid assembly, while the N-terminal nuclear localization signal, GTKRKR sequence (residue 15-20), was nonessential for the virus-like particles (VLPs) assembly, but did effect the formation of crystalline arrays in infected Sf9 cells. These information provided clues for how icosahedral-virus capsids formed and showed the potential of C6/36DNV-VLPs becoming a powerful nanoparticle vector.
authors.affiliation: Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, People's Republic of China. lizhihong923@163.com
authors.forename: Zhihong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Xiaojun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Aguang
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Lingpeng
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Dingyong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Jingqiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000330:Aedes / Q000821:virology*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D036022:Capsid Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D002460:Cell Line; D019223:Densovirinae / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D017990:Densovirus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D018411:Spodoptera; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D014771:Virion / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000648:ultrastructure; D019065:Virus Assembly
chemical_list: D036022:Capsid Proteins; D014764:Viral Proteins