Castón José R, Carrascosa José L
Department of Macromolecular Structure, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CSIC), c/Darwin 3, Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain,
Subcell Biochem. 2013;68:53-75. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-6552-8_2.
Viruses are elegant macromolecular assemblies and constitute a paradigm of the economy of genomic resources; they must use simple general principles and a very limited number of viral components to complete their life cycles successfully. Viruses need only one or a few different capsid structural subunits to build an infectious particle, which is made possible because of two reasons: extensive use of symmetry and built-in conformational flexibility. Although viruses from the numerous virus families come in many shapes and sizes, two major types of symmetric assemblies are found: icosahedral and helical particles. The enormous diversity of virus structures might be derived from one or a limited number of basic schemes that has become more complex by consecutive incorporation of structural elements. The intrinsic structural polymorphism of the viral proteins and other observations indicate that capsids are dynamic structures. Study of virus structures is required to understand structure-function relationships in viruses, including those related to morphogenesis and antigenicity. These structural foundations can be extended to other macromolecular complexes that control many fundamental processes in biology.
病毒是精巧的大分子聚集体，构成了基因组资源经济性的典范；它们必须运用简单的通用原则和数量非常有限的病毒组分才能成功完成其生命周期。病毒只需一种或几种不同的衣壳结构亚基就能构建一个感染性颗粒，这之所以成为可能有两个原因：广泛利用对称性和内在的构象灵活性。尽管众多病毒家族的病毒具有多种形状和大小，但发现了两种主要类型的对称聚集体：二十面体和螺旋状颗粒。病毒结构的巨大多样性可能源自一种或有限数量的基本模式，这些模式通过连续纳入结构元件而变得更加复杂。病毒蛋白的内在结构多态性及其他观察结果表明，衣壳是动态结构。研究病毒结构对于理解病毒中的结构-功能关系是必要的，包括那些与形态发生和抗原性相关的关系。这些结构基础可以扩展到控制生物学中许多基本过程的其他大分子复合物。
