{"id":184461,"date":"2024-03-09T00:17:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-09T06:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/first-atom-level-structure-of-packaged-viral-genome-reveals-new-properties-and-dynamics"},"modified":"2024-03-09T00:17:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-09T06:17:02","slug":"first-atom-level-structure-of-packaged-viral-genome-reveals-new-properties-and-dynamics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/first-atom-level-structure-of-packaged-viral-genome-reveals-new-properties-and-dynamics","title":{"rendered":"First atom-level structure of packaged viral genome reveals new properties and dynamics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qJG_CQSqErA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A computational model of the more than 26 million atoms in a DNA-packed viral capsid expands our understanding of virus structure and DNA dynamics, insights that could provide new research avenues and drug targets, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-024-07150-4\">report<\/a> in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo fight a virus, we want to know everything there is to know about it. We know what\u2019s inside in terms of components, but we don\u2019t know how they\u2019re arranged,\u201d said study leader Aleksei Aksimentiev, an Illinois professor of physics. \u201cKnowledge of the internal structures gives us more targets for drugs, which tend to focus on receptors on the surface or replication proteins.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Viruses keep their <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/genetic+material\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">genetic material <\/a>\u2014either DNA or RNA\u2014packaged in a hollow particle called a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/capsid\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">capsid<\/a>. While the structures of many hollow capsids have been described, the structure of a full capsid and the genetic material inside it has remained elusive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A computational model of the more than 26 million atoms in a DNA-packed viral capsid expands our understanding of virus structure and DNA dynamics, insights that could provide new research avenues and drug targets, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers report in the journal Nature. \u201cTo fight a virus, we want to know everything there is [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}