Skip to main content
PMC home page
Journal of Virology logoLink to Journal of Virology
. 1988 Sep;62(9):3399–3406. doi: 10.1128/jvi.62.9.3399-3406.1988

Assembly-dependent maturation cleavage in provirions of a small icosahedral insect ribovirus.

T M Gallagher 1, R R Rueckert 1
PMCID: PMC253463  PMID: 3404580

Abstract

Extracts from nodavirus-infected Drosophila cells contained detergent-labile 140S "young" particles much richer than mature virions in their content of protein alpha, a precursor of coat proteins beta and gamma. Incorporation studies in infected cells showed that most newly synthesized alpha protein was assembled into young particles within a few minutes. Incubation of the particles, either in cytoplasmic extracts or after purification, resulted in spontaneous first-order cleavage of alpha protein to form beta-plus-gamma chains. Alpha protein that was not associated with particles failed to cleave. Cleavage was accompanied by a marked increase in detergent stability of the particles and was unaffected by a broad spectrum of protease inhibitors or by coating with precipitating antibody. We conclude (i) that alpha chains are cleaved only after assembly into provirions, (ii) that cleavage occurs internally and is likely therefore autocatalytic, and (iii) that cleavage stabilizes the mature virus particles.

Full text

PDF
3399

Images in this article

3401Image
on p.3401
3401Image
on p.3401
3402Image
on p.3402

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Baltimore D., Girard M., Darnell J. E. Aspects of the synthesis of poliovirus RNA and the formation of virus particles. Virology. 1966 Jun;29(2):179–189. doi: 10.1016/0042-6822(66)90024-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bancroft J. B. The self-assembly of spherical plant viruses. Adv Virus Res. 1970;16:99–134. doi: 10.1016/s0065-3527(08)60022-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Brady J. N., Winston V. D., Consigli R. A. Dissociation of polyoma virus by the chelation of calcium ions found associated with purified virions. J Virol. 1977 Sep;23(3):717–724. doi: 10.1128/jvi.23.3.717-724.1977. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. CASPAR D. L., KLUG A. Physical principles in the construction of regular viruses. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol. 1962;27:1–24. doi: 10.1101/sqb.1962.027.001.005. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Crowell R. L., Philipson L. Specific alterations of coxsackievirus B3 eluted from HeLa cells. J Virol. 1971 Oct;8(4):509–515. doi: 10.1128/jvi.8.4.509-515.1971. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Dasgupta R., Ghosh A., Dasmahapatra B., Guarino L. A., Kaesberg P. Primary and secondary structure of black beetle virus RNA2, the genomic messenger for BBV coat protein precursor. Nucleic Acids Res. 1984 Sep 25;12(18):7215–7223. doi: 10.1093/nar/12.18.7215. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Dasmahapatra B., Dasgupta R., Ghosh A., Kaesberg P. Structure of the black beetle virus genome and its functional implications. J Mol Biol. 1985 Mar 20;182(2):183–189. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(85)90337-7. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Dasmahapatra B., Dasgupta R., Saunders K., Selling B., Gallagher T., Kaesberg P. Infectious RNA derived by transcription from cloned cDNA copies of the genomic RNA of an insect virus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Jan;83(1):63–66. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.1.63. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Fernandez-Tomas C. B., Baltimore D. Morphogenesis of poliovirus. II. Demonstration of a new intermediate, the proviron. J Virol. 1973 Nov;12(5):1122–1130. doi: 10.1128/jvi.12.5.1122-1130.1973. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Friesen P. D., Rueckert R. R. Synthesis of Black Beetle Virus Proteins in Cultured Drosophila Cells: Differential Expression of RNAs 1 and 2. J Virol. 1981 Mar;37(3):876–886. doi: 10.1128/jvi.37.3.876-886.1981. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Friesen P., Scotti P., Longworth J., Rueckert R. Black beetle virus: propagation in Drosophila line 1 cells and an infection-resistant subline carrying endogenous black beetle virus-related particles. J Virol. 1980 Sep;35(3):741–747. doi: 10.1128/jvi.35.3.741-747.1980. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Gallagher T. M., Friesen P. D., Rueckert R. R. Autonomous replication and expression of RNA 1 from black beetle virus. J Virol. 1983 May;46(2):481–489. doi: 10.1128/jvi.46.2.481-489.1983. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Guttman N., Baltimore D. Morphogenesis of poliovirus. IV. existence of particles sedimenting at 150S and having the properties of provirion. J Virol. 1977 Aug;23(2):363–367. doi: 10.1128/jvi.23.2.363-367.1977. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Hoey E. M., Martin S. J. A possible precursor containing RNA of a bovine enterovirus: the provirion 11. J Gen Virol. 1974 Sep;24(3):515–524. doi: 10.1099/0022-1317-24-3-515. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Hosur M. V., Schmidt T., Tucker R. C., Johnson J. E., Gallagher T. M., Selling B. H., Rueckert R. R. Structure of an insect virus at 3.0 A resolution. Proteins. 1987;2(3):167–176. doi: 10.1002/prot.340020302. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Kessler S. W. Cell membrane antigen isolation with the staphylococcal protein A-antibody adsorbent. J Immunol. 1976 Nov;117(5 Pt 1):1482–1490. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Laemmli U. K. Cleavage of structural proteins during the assembly of the head of bacteriophage T4. Nature. 1970 Aug 15;227(5259):680–685. doi: 10.1038/227680a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Medappa K. C., McLean C., Rueckert R. R. On the structure of rhinovirus 1A. Virology. 1971 May;44(2):259–270. doi: 10.1016/0042-6822(71)90258-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. SCHNEIDER I. DIFFERENTIATION OF LARVAL DROSOPHILA EYE-ANTENNAL DISCS IN VITRO. J Exp Zool. 1964 Jun;156:91–103. doi: 10.1002/jez.1401560107. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Schneider I. Cell lines derived from late embryonic stages of Drosophila melanogaster. J Embryol Exp Morphol. 1972 Apr;27(2):353–365. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Scotti P. D., Dearing S., Mossop D. W. Flock House virus: a nodavirus isolated from Costelytra zealandica (White) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae). Arch Virol. 1983;75(3):181–189. doi: 10.1007/BF01315272. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Selling B. H., Rueckert R. R. Plaque assay for black beetle virus. J Virol. 1984 Jul;51(1):251–253. doi: 10.1128/jvi.51.1.251-253.1984. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Virology are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES