FIG. 3.

Computational studies locate a hydrophobic pocket at or near the GP1-GP2 interface in the GP prefusion crystal structure. (A) The three proposed binding sites S1 to S3, calculated with the Schrödinger Sitemap program, are shown in colored grids. Hydrophobic, ligand donor, and ligand acceptor maps are shown in yellow, blue, and red, respectively. EBOV-GP1 is shown in yellow and red ribbons, and GP2 is displayed in blue ribbons. (B) Magnified view of the S2 binding site circled in panel A. The putative binding site S2 was identified using Schrödinger SiteMap. Selected residues which are proposed to make contacts within the binding site are displayed as stick models. (C) The amino acid residues in the EBOV-GP1 sequence that are important for viral entry are shown. The charged residues are underlined, while hydrophobic residues are shown as gray shaded regions. The arrows indicate the positions of mutations in EBOV-GP1 of the HIV/EBOV-GP mutant pseudotype viruses utilized in this study.