MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
National Center for Macromolecular Imaging, Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
Curr Opin Virol. 2014 Apr;5:105-10. doi: 10.1016/j.coviro.2014.02.003. Epub 2014 Apr 17.
Structural information can inform our understanding of virus origins and evolution. The herpesviruses and tailed bacteriophages constitute two large families of dsDNA viruses which infect vertebrates and prokaryotes respectively. A relationship between these disparate groups was initially suggested by similarities in their capsid assembly and DNA packaging strategies. This relationship has now been confirmed by a range of studies that have revealed common structural features in their capsid proteins, and similar organizations and sequence conservation in their DNA packaging machinery and maturational proteases. This concentration of conserved traits in proteins involved in essential and primordial capsid/packaging functions is evidence that these structures are derived from an ancient, common ancestor and is in sharp contrast to the lack of such evidence for other virus functions.
结构信息可以帮助我们了解病毒的起源和进化。疱疹病毒和长尾噬菌体分别构成了感染脊椎动物和原核生物的两个大型双链 DNA 病毒家族。这些不同群体之间的关系最初是由它们衣壳组装和 DNA 包装策略的相似性提示的。现在，一系列研究证实了这种关系，这些研究揭示了它们衣壳蛋白中的共同结构特征，以及 DNA 包装机制和成熟蛋白酶中的相似组织和序列保守性。在参与基本和原始衣壳/包装功能的蛋白质中，这些保守特征的集中体现证明了这些结构是从一个古老的、共同的祖先中衍生出来的，这与其他病毒功能缺乏这种证据形成了鲜明的对比。
