Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 11
Virus Architecture Probed by Atomic
Force Microscopy
A. J. Malkin
†,
*, Yu. G. Kuznetsov
‡
, M. Plomp
†
and
A. McPherson
‡
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has recently emerged as an effective com-
plement to X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy techniques for
studying virus structure, assembly and function. AFM allows direct, high-
resolution visualization of the native surface of both polymorphic and
pleiomorphic viruses and their subviral structures. These AFM data, as we
demonstrated recently for vaccinia virus, allow successful modeling of the
complex architecture of a large virus. AFM can be used to elucidate
dynamic processes associated with the lifecycle of viruses
in vitro
and probe
the mechanisms of virus entry and budding on the surfaces of virus-
infected cells.
Introduction
Currently, X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy (EM) are the
two primary tools for structural studies of viruses, and they have pro-
vided detailed structures for a wide range of icosahedral and helical
*Corresponding author. E-mail: malkin1@llnl.gov
†
Chemistry, Materials, and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
Livermore, CA 94551, USA.
‡
Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, California
92697-3900, USA.
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