Molecular Organisation of Tick-Borne Encephalitis VirusShow others and affiliations
2022 (English)In: Viruses, E-ISSN 1999-4915, Vol. 14, no 4, article id 792
Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is a pathogenic, enveloped, positive-stranded RNA virus in the family Flaviviridae. Structural studies of flavivirus virions have primarily focused on mosquito-borne species, with only one cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structure of a tick-borne species published. Here, we present a 3.3 Å cryo-EM structure of the TBEV virion of the Kuutsalo-14 isolate, confirming the overall organisation of the virus. We observe conformational switching of the peripheral and transmembrane helices of M protein, which can explain the quasi-equivalent packing of the viral proteins and highlights their importance in stabilising membrane protein arrangement in the virion. The residues responsible for M protein interactions are highly conserved in TBEV but not in the structurally studied Hypr strain, nor in mosquito-borne flaviviruses. These interactions may compensate for the lower number of hydrogen bonds between E proteins in TBEV compared to the mosquito-borne flaviviruses. The structure reveals two lipids bound in the E protein which are important for virus assembly. The lipid pockets are comparable to those recently described in mosquito-borne Zika, Spondweni, Dengue, and Usutu viruses. Our results thus advance the understanding of tick-borne flavivirus architecture and virion-stabilising interactions.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI, 2022. Vol. 14, no 4, article id 792
Keywords [en]
Cryo-electron microscopy, Envelope protein, Glycoprotein, Lipid factor, Membrane protein, Quasi-equivalence, TBEV, Tick-borne encephalitis virus
National Category
Microbiology in the medical area
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-196141DOI: 10.3390/v14040792ISI: 000786940300001PubMedID: 35458522Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85130049802OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-196141DiVA, id: diva2:1666766
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2018-05851EU, Horizon 2020, 765042EU, Horizon 2020, 799929Knut and Alice Wallenberg FoundationFamiljen Erling-Perssons StiftelseThe Kempe FoundationsScience for Life Laboratory, SciLifeLab2022-06-092022-06-092024-01-17Bibliographically approved