Structural Biology Unit, CIC bioGUNE, CIBERehd, 48160 Derio, Spain.
Annu Rev Biochem. 2012;81:795-822. doi: 10.1146/annurev-biochem-060910-095130. Epub 2012 Apr 5.
Is it possible to meaningfully comprehend the diversity of the viral world? We propose that it is. This is based on the observation that, although there is immense genomic variation, every infective virion is restricted by strict constraints in structure space (i.e., there are a limited number of ways to fold a protein chain, and only a small subset of these have the potential to construct a virion, the hallmark of a virus). We have previously suggested the use of structure for the higher-order classification of viruses, where genomic similarities are no longer observable. Here, we summarize the arguments behind this proposal, describe the current status of structural work, highlighting its power to infer common ancestry, and discuss the limitations and obstacles ahead of us. We also reflect on the future opportunities for a more concerted effort to provide high-throughput methods to facilitate the large-scale sampling of the virosphere.
是否有可能真正理解病毒世界的多样性？我们认为是有可能的。这是基于这样一种观察结果：尽管存在巨大的基因组变异，但每个感染性病毒粒子都受到结构空间的严格限制（即，蛋白质链的折叠方式有限，只有一小部分具有构建病毒粒子的潜力，这是病毒的标志）。我们之前曾建议使用结构进行病毒的高级分类，在这种分类中，不再观察到基因组的相似性。在这里，我们总结了这一建议背后的论点，描述了结构工作的现状，强调了它推断共同祖先的能力，并讨论了我们面临的限制和障碍。我们还反思了未来更协调地努力提供高通量方法以促进病毒圈的大规模采样的机会。
