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Journal of Virology, June 2002, p. 6370-6375, Vol. 76, No. 12
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.12.6370-6375.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Virus-Like Particles of a Fish Nodavirus Display a Capsid Subunit Domain Organization Different from That of Insect Nodaviruses
Liang Tang,1 Chan-Shing Lin,2 Neel K. Krishna,1 Mark Yeager,3,4 Anette Schneemann,1 and John E. Johnson1*
Department of Molecular Biology,1
Department of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute,3
Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, California 92037,4
Department of Marine Resources, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan2
Received 18 October 2001/
Accepted 7 March 2002

ABSTRACT
The structure of recombinant virus-like particles of malabaricus
grouper nervous necrosis virus (MGNNV), a fish nodavirus isolated
from the grouper
Epinephelus malabaricus, was determined by
electron cryomicroscopy (cryoEM) and three-dimensional reconstruction
at 23-Å resolution. The cryoEM structure, sequence comparison,
and protein fold recognition analysis indicate that the coat
protein of MGNNV has two domains resembling those of tomato
bushy stunt virus and Norwalk virus, rather than the expected
single-domain coat protein of insect nodaviruses. The analysis
implies that residues 83 to 216 fold as a ß-sandwich
which forms the inner shell of the T=3 capsid and residues 217
to 308 form the trimeric surface protrusions observed in the
cryoEM map. The structural similarities between fish nodaviruses
and members of the tombusvirus and calicivirus groups provide
significant new data for understanding the evolution of the
nodavirus family.

TEXT
Fish nodaviruses are associated with massive mortality in more
than 20 species of fish in oceans near Asia, Europe, and Australia
(
14,
16). They cause nervous necrosis, encephalopathy, and retinopathy,
with the appearance of vacuolating lesions in the brain and
retina, abnormal swimming behavior, dark color, and high mortality
in hatchery-reared larvae and juveniles (
1,
2,
4,
7-
9,
21).
Classification of these viruses into the genus
Betanodavirus of the family
Nodaviridae is based on similarities to the insect
nodaviruses in shape, size, and buoyant density of the particles
and the bipartite RNA genome organization. Sequence comparisons,
however, show no significant homology between capsid proteins
of fish and insect nodaviruses (
15). Like the insect nodaviruses,
the genome of fish nodaviruses consists of two molecules of
messenger sense, single-stranded RNA: a larger RNA1 encoding
the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, and a smaller RNA2 encoding
the coat protein. The structure, assembly, and RNA packaging
of insect nodaviruses have been studied extensively (
5,
18-
20,
23). However, the malabaricus grouper nervous necrosis virus
(MGNNV) replicates poorly in infected tissue, which causes difficulties
in obtaining sufficient material for biophysical analysis.
Recently the capsid protein gene of a fish nodavirus causing nervous necrosis in the grouper Epinephelus malabaricus was expressed in Sf21 insect cells using a recombinant baculovirus vector (12). The virus-like particles that spontaneously assembled were morphologically indistinguishable from authentic MGNNV when examined by negative-stain electron microscopy. RNA1 was not present in the expression system, and the virus-like particles packaged mainly cellular RNA. Here we report the three-dimensional structure of the virus-like particles of MGNNV determined by electron cryomicroscopy (cryoEM), image reconstruction, and a sequence-based domain organization of the protein subunit. The results from the different analyses provide consistent and convincing evidence that the MGNNV subunit organization is different from that of the insect nodavirus.
CryoEM image reconstruction.
The cryoEM structure of MGNNV was determined as described previously (for an example, see reference 20). Micrographs of frozen hydrated particles were recorded with a Philips CM120 electron microscope at liquid nitrogen temperatures under low-dose conditions (Fig. 1). A total of 263 of 313 boxed particles from a single micrograph recorded at
1.2-µm underfocus was used for the final reconstruction. The reconstruction was computed with the program SPIDER (6). The resolution of the reconstruction was
23 Å as estimated by the Fourier shell correlation method (Fig. 2) (22).
CryoEM structure of MGNNV.
As anticipated from the difference in appearance of the fish
and insect nodaviruses in high-contrast, unprocessed images
of frozen hydrated particles (Fig.
1), the cryoEM structure
of MGNNV differed remarkably from those of insect nodaviruses,
such as Pariacoto virus (PaV) (Fig.
3). Like that of the insect
nodaviruses, the surface morphology of MGNNV is consistent with
a T=3 quasi-equivalent lattice; however, the details of the
morphology and the radial density distribution of MGNNV differ
dramatically from those of PaV (Fig.
3 and
4). The maximum diameter
of MGNNV is approximately 380 Å, significantly larger
than the PaV capsid at 360 Å. The density distribution
of the MGNNV map shows two shells, at radii corresponding to
protein, separated by low density. The outer shell is between
radii of 154 and 192 Å with a maximum at 168 Å;
the inner shell is between radii of 112 and 154 Å with
a maximum at 135 Å. The MGNNV map is contoured at a level
such that the resultant volume of these two shells is equal
to the expected volume of its protein capsid, which is formed
by 180 copies of a 38-kDa subunit. It is noteworthy that the
interior boundary of the inner shell (112 Å) of MGNNV
and PaV are nearly coincident, and this defines the interior
limit of the ß-sandwich domain of PaV. Density with
a radius of less than 112 Å (Fig.
3b and
4) is probably
predominately RNA.
The outer shell of MGNNV is composed mainly of the large protrusions
located at the quasi-three-fold axes. These protrusions are
much more prominent than those of PaV (Fig.
3). The inner shell
is relatively uniform, and the protrusions are separated from
it by nearly a 12-Å void, indicating that the connection
between the domains is probably a single, extended polypeptide
chain that is not visible in the cryoEM map.
The crystal structures of PaV and Flock house virus showed that the protrusions at highest radius are formed by three two-stranded ß-sheets related to each other by quasi-three-fold symmetry (5, 20) (Fig. 5a). These ß-sheets are formed by insertions between strands of the canonical viral ß-sandwich that forms the contiguous protein shells of the insect nodaviruses, and the strands are twisted together about the quasi-three-fold axes to form the surface protrusions. The inner and outer regions of the insect nodaviruses, however, display continuous density in contrast to the density gap between the outer and inner shells of protein in MGNNV.
Superposition of the cryoEM map of MGNNV with the atomic model
of PaV derived from the crystal structure showed relatively
good agreement for the region occupied by the contiguous ß-sandwich
shell in PaV. However, there was poor agreement in the outer
radial region (Fig.
5a). The protrusions at the quasi-three-fold
axes in MGNNV have much larger volume than could be accounted
for by the three twisted ß-sheets at the surface of
the PaV structure (Fig.
5a). Thus, these protrusions must contain
more protein that may form individual domains. Moreover, the
PaV model could not account for differences in density observed
in the MGNNV reconstruction at the icosahedral and quasi-two-fold
symmetry axes. Significant density exists at the icosahedral
two-fold axes between protrusions. However, there is only weak
density at the corresponding regions between protrusions related
by the quasi-two-fold symmetry (Fig.
3a). This density difference
implies different patterns of contacts between protrusions at
icosahedral and quasi-two-fold axes.
Both the cryoEM reconstruction and the crystal structure of PaV revealed that an ordered portion of the viral RNA forms a dodecahedral cage composed of 30 segments of RNA duplex closely associated with the capsid (20). In the reconstruction of MGNNV, there is no significant density adjacent to the capsid that can be interpreted as duplex RNA. However, the density at lower radius (<112 Å) may be attributed to the cellular RNA randomly packaged inside the capsid and/or portions of the coat protein, e.g., the N-terminal basic-residue-rich segments which are likely to interact with RNA (Fig. 3b).
Fold recognition of MGNNV capsid protein.
The MGNNV capsid protein shows no significant sequence homology with any known insect nodavirus, although sequence identity among fish nodaviruses varies from 71 to 88% (15, 16). We used 3D-PSSM (three-dimensional position-specific scoring matrix) to investigate the folding motif of the MGNNV coat protein. 3D-PSSM combines knowledge of three-dimensional structures with secondary-structure matching and solvation potentials to recognize protein folds with remote sequence homologues (11). The amino acid sequence of the coat protein of MGNNV was entered into the web server of 3D-PSSM (http://www.bmm.icnet.uk/
3dpssm/) to search for the homologous folds in the database of known structures. Four structures were identified as comparable with MGNNV with a confidence level of
95%, while the rest of the candidates had a confidence level of <50% (Table 1). Strikingly, there were no insect nodaviruses with known atomic structure in the top 20 comparable structures. As a control, the primary sequence of PaV was entered, and all known structures of insect nodaviruses were identified as the top candidates for similar folding (data not shown).
All four structures identified as likely homologues of MGNNV
were virus coat proteins that have canonical, uninterrupted
viral ß-sandwich folds. The first three varied from
189 to 222 aligned residues, and they predicted the fold of
MGNNV residues 31 to 235, 49 to 214, and 27 to 213, respectively,
as a ß-sandwich (Table
1). The fourth structure provided
prediction for almost the entire MGNNV sequence (residues 24
to 319) (Fig.
6). The fourth structure was the coat protein
of tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV), which contains two domains:
the N-terminal domain (residues 103 to 271) forming a ß-sandwich
and the contiguous protein capsid, and the C-terminal domain
(residues 272 to 387) forming a protrusion at the capsid surface
(
10). Sequence comparisons of the coat proteins of several fish
nodaviruses showed that the protein could be divided into a
conserved region and a variable region (
15). The conserved region
comprises residues 83 to 216 and shows pairwise sequence identity
of 86 to 96%; the variable region comprises residues 235 to
315, with pairwise sequence identity of 66 to 84%. These results
suggested that residues 83 to 216 of MGNNV might form a conserved
ß-sandwich domain that is similar to that in TBSV.
Residues 217 to the C-terminal residue 338 would then form a
protruding domain that corresponds to the surface protrusions
observed in the cryoEM map. The 122 residues in the protruding
domain correspond to 48% of the 256 residues in the two domains.
This percentage is close to the ratio of the volume of the protrusions
to the total capsid volume (45%) in the cryoEM map. No homologous
structure was identified with a confidence factor above 50%
when only the variable region of MGNNV (residues 217 to 338)
was entered into 3D-PSSM, indicating that this protruding domain
may have a novel fold. The N-terminal segment from residues
1 to 82 shares more than 79% sequence identity among the four
fish nodaviruses MGNNV,
Dicentrarchus labrax encephalitis virus,
striped jack nervous necrosis virus, and Atlantic halibut virus.
It is rich in basic residues and may contribute to neutralization
of the negative charge of the viral nucleic acid in virus assembly
and RNA packaging as demonstrated for insect nodaviruses (
13,
20).
Modeling the domain structure of MGNNV capsid protein.
The ß-sandwich domain (residues 103 to 271) and the
protruding domain (residues 272 to 387) of TBSV (Protein Data
Bank entry code 1tbv) were manually fitted into the inner shell
and protruding density of the cryoEM map of MGNNV, respectively.
The resultant model was subjected to cycles of rigid body refinement
against a set of structure amplitudes generated from the cryoEM
map. For this calculation, the map was modified in such a way
that density above or equal to 1.4 standard deviation was set
to 1, and lower density was set to 0. This adjustment ensured
that the refinement was carried out against a molecular volume
and shape as shown in Fig.
3a and b. During the refinement,
each domain was defined as an independent rigid group. The crystallographic
R-factor dropped from 0.56 to 0.48. The final model agreed well
with the cryoEM map (Fig.
5). Compared to the original TBSV
coordinates, the ß-sandwich domain was shifted slightly
towards the center of the virus particle (the root mean square
difference in C

positions is

3 Å) whereas the protruding
domain moved by

24 Å with a rotation of

87°. Such
a large change reflects an improved fit to the density but also
suggests, like the 3D-PSSM searches, that there may be no relationship
between the folds of the outer domains in TBSV and MGNNV and
that the TBSV domain is only shifted to optimally occupy the
MGNNV density. Nevertheless, the pattern of interactions between
the outer domains confirms the T=3 lattice of the capsid (Fig.
5a and c). These domains make more extensive contacts at the
icosahedral two-fold axes than at the quasi-two-fold axes, which
is consistent with the observation of more-significant density
at icosahedral two-fold axes than at quasi-two-fold axes in
the cryoEM map.
The model suggests that the C terminus of the coat protein of MGNNV is probably located at the outer surface of the capsid. In contrast, the X-ray structures of insect nodaviruses showed that the C-terminal regions are situated inside the capsid (5, 20, 23). In all known insect nodaviruses, a short, C-terminal segment of the coat protein is cleaved via postassembly autocatalysis to yield mature particles with full infectivity, and it is proposed to play a role in the delivery of viral RNA into host cells (3, 5, 20, 23). However, there is no biochemical evidence for such autoproteolysis in the fish nodaviridae, indicating that RNA translocation in fish nodaviruses upon infection may involve a different molecular mechanism.
The cryoEM structure and fold analysis demonstrated that the MGNNV coat protein bears a closer resemblance to TBSV than to the insect nodavirus capsid proteins. The conserved region from residues 83 to 216 probably folds into a ß-sandwich that forms the inner shell of the capsid. The variable region from residues 217 to the C terminus probably forms the surface-protruding domain and may have a novel fold as suggested by results with 3D-PSSM. Presumably, residues around 216 form a polypeptide hinge to connect the two domains. It is likely that the relative position and orientation of the outer domain in MGNNV are different from those in TBSV. The protruding domains in MGNNV are held together around the quasi-three-fold axes to form 60 protrusions, whereas the protruding domains in TBSV join at the icosahedral and quasi-two-fold axes to form 90 protrusions. The coat protein of Norwalk virus also consists of a ß-sandwich domain, which forms the inner shell of the capsid, and a protruding domain, which forms dimers at the icosahedral and quasi-two-fold axes as in TBSV (17). In all these viruses, the ß-sandwich domain serves to form the structural scaffold of the virus capsid, while the protruding domain may be involved in specific biological processes such as host cell recognition.
The structural similarity between fish nodaviruses and members of the tombusvirus and calicivirus groups suggests that fish and insect nodaviruses have converged to bipartite viruses, with their structures and some functions reflecting different origins.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by NIH grants to J.E.J., A.S., and M.Y.
M.Y. is the recipient of a Clinical Scientist Award in Translation
Research from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. N.K.K. was supported
by an NIH fellowship award.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Molecular Biology MB31, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 N. Torrey Pines Rd., La Jolla, CA 92037. Phone: (858) 784-9705. Fax: (858) 784-8660. E-mail:
jackj{at}scripps.edu.


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Journal of Virology, June 2002, p. 6370-6375, Vol. 76, No. 12
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.12.6370-6375.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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