Review abstract
Focus on Membrane Fusion
- Focus issue:
- Julember 2008 Volume 15, No 7
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 15, 690 - 698 (2008)
Published online: 3 July 2008 | doi:10.1038/nsmb.1456
Viral membrane fusion
Stephen C Harrison1
Abstract
Infection by viruses having lipid-bilayer envelopes proceeds through fusion of the viral membrane with a membrane of the target cell. Viral 'fusion proteins' facilitate this process. They vary greatly in structure, but all seem to have a common mechanism of action, in which a ligand-triggered, large-scale conformational change in the fusion protein is coupled to apposition and merger of the two bilayers. We describe three examples—the influenza virus hemagglutinin, the flavivirus E protein and the vesicular stomatitis virus G protein—in some detail, to illustrate the ways in which different structures have evolved to implement this common mechanism. Fusion inhibitors can be effective antiviral agents.
- Jack and Eileen Connors Structural Biology Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, Laboratory of Molecular Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 250 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
Correspondence to: Stephen C Harrison1 e-mail: harrison@crystal.harvard.edu
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