Viral proteins articles from across Nature Portfolio

Hantaan virus polymerase is a central enzyme that performs hantavirus genome replication and transcription. Here, the authors unveil the structure of the full-length Hantaan virus polymerase in monomeric, dimeric and hexameric apo forms, revealing the multimerization capability of this enzyme.

HPV’s E6 protein promotes cancer by degrading p53. This study reveals the cryoEM structure of HPV16 E6 in complex with E6AP and p53, highlighting their picomolar affinity and large protein-protein interaction interface.

African swine fever virus type II DNA topoisomerase (AsfvTop2) is known to change DNA topology by employing a complex catalytic cycle and is involved in the early stages of viral gene replication, however, the structural and regulatory functions of AsfvTop2 remain underexplored. Here, the authors use cryo-EM to demonstrate six conformers of apo-AsfvTop2 as well as the structures of AsfvTop2-DNA-inhibitor complexes, revealing experimental evidence of their substrate binding mechanism that also shed light to other enzymes.

Dissection of the nuclear pore complex provides a model in which the HIV capsid enters the nucleus through karyopherin mimicry, a mechanism likely to be conserved across other viruses.

A new paper in Science reports that human genomes encode a large repertoire of retroviral envelope-derived proteins, with potential roles in protecting from infection by other retroviruses.

This month’s Under the Lens discusses a few of the growing number of recent molecular simulation studies that have made substantial contributions towards our mechanistic understanding of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.

This study suggests that primary SARS-CoV-2 exposure may protect against reinfection in rhesus macaques.