title: Cloning, expression and preliminary crystallographic analysis of the equine infectious anaemia virus (EIAV) gp45 ectodomain.
abstract: Like human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), equine infectious anaemia virus (EIAV) belongs to the lentivirus genus. The first successful lentiviral vaccine was developed for EIAV. Thus, EIAV may serve as a valuable model for HIV vaccine research. EIAV glycoprotein 45 (gp45) plays a similar role to gp41 in HIV by mediating virus-host membrane fusion. The gp45 ectodomain was constructed according to the structure of HIV gp41, with removal of the disulfide-bond loop region. The protein was expressed in Escherichia coli and crystallized following purification. However, most of the crystals grew as aggregates and could not be used for data collection. By extensively screening hundreds of crystals, a 2.7 Å resolution data set was collected from a single crystal. The crystal belonged to space group P6(3), with unit-cell parameters a = b = 46.84, c = 101.61 Å, α = β = 90, γ = 120°. Molecular replacement was performed using the coordinates of various lengths of HIV gp41 as search models. A long bent helix was identified and a well defined electron-density map around the long helix was obtained. This primary model provided the starting point for further refinement.
authors.affiliation: College of Life Science, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Pei Long
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Shu Xia
authors.initials: SX
authors.lastname: Lv
authors.forename: Jian Hua
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Xin Qi
authors.initials: XQ
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D015870:Gene Expression; D004860:Infectious Anemia Virus, Equine / Q000737:chemistry*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins; C066797:transmembrane envelope glycoprotein gp45, retrovirus