Journal of General Virology (2001) 82, 1499-1502

Ewan W. Blanch, David J. Robinson, Lutz Hecht and Laurence D. Barron (2001)
A comparison of the solution structures of tobacco rattle and Tobacco mosaic viruses from Raman optical activity
Journal of General Virology 82 (6), 1499-1502
Abstract: Vibrational Raman optical activity (ROA) spectra of tobacco rattle virus (TRV) and tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) were measured and compared with a view to obtaining new information about the coat protein subunit structure of TRV. A sharp strong positive band observed at ~1344 cm^-1 in the ROA spectra of the two viruses is evidence that both contain a significant amount of a hydrated form of alpha-helix, but more in TRV than in TMV. Although the ROA spectrum of TMV shows significant positive intensity in the range ~1297–1312 cm^-1 characteristic of alpha-helix in a hydrophobic environment, as expected from the helix interface residues in the four-helix bundles that constitute the basic motif of the TMV coat protein fold, that of TRV shows little positive ROA intensity here. Instead TRV shows a strong positive ROA band at ~1315 cm^-1, of much greater intensity than bands shown here by TMV, that is characteristic of polyproline II (PPII) helix. This suggests that the additional long central and C-terminal sequences of the TRV coat proteins contain a significant amount of PPII structure, plus perhaps some ß-strand judging by a prominent sharp negative ROA band shown by TRV at ~1236 cm^-1, but little alpha-helix. The open flexible hydrated nature of PPII helical structure is consistent with the earlier suggestions that the additional sequences are exposed and, together with a larger amount of hydrated alpha-helix, could serve to fill the extra volume required by the larger diameter of the cylindrical TRV particles relative to those of TMV.
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Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
molecular biology - genes

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Tobacco mosaic virus
	Tobacco rattle virus