Ccepted, model of paramyxovirus fusion suggests that upon receptor binding, the F glycoprotein is activated, presumably involving direct contacts between the attachment and fusion glycoproteins, and inserts its fusion peptide into the host cell membrane. The activation process facilitates a series of conformational changes in F and the glycoprotein transitions into its post-fusion, six-helixbundle conformation concomitant with the merging of the viral membrane envelope and the host cell plasma membrane [15]. However, all of the details of the entire receptor binding and fusion activation process have yet to be defined, and the structural characterization of the F and G glycoproteins across the various stages of these processes is essential for detailing this critical step in the virus life-cycle. The structures of HeV-G alone and the HeVG/ephrin-B2 complex were recently published [32,33], however, many important details were not revealed possibly due to the low ?resolution (3.3 A for the complex). The high-resolution structures ?described here, including both HeV-G alone (2.2 A) and in ?complex with ephrin-B2 (2.7 A), combined with structure-based mutagenesis, reveal new insights into the molecular mechanisms governing the initial steps of henipavirus entry into host cells and into the paramyxovirus entry mechanism in general.Figure 1. Structure of the HeV-G dimer. The secondary structure elements of the two molecules are colored in cyan and green. The axes of the two six-blade b-propellers are 58-49-1 approximately perpendicular to each other. Disulfide bonds are illustrated as yellow sticks. Asparaginelinked carbohydrate modifications (glycosylations) are illustrated as grey spheres. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048742.gResults and Discussion Structure of unbound HeV-GThe HeV-G globular head domain (174?02) was expressed using the baculovirus/insect-cell system as described in the ?Materials and Methods. The structure was determined at 2.2 A resolution (Table S1) using molecular replacement with NiV-G (PDB ID 3D11) as a search model. Similar to other paramyxovirus attachment proteins, the HeV-G’s head domain folds as a sixblade (B1 6) b-propeller (Figure 1). Each blade contains four anti-parallel beta-strands (S1 4), except B6 (S1 5), which is composed of the three C-terminal strands of the protein and its two most N-terminal strands, thus forming a “velcro”-type closure. The blades are connected through extended loops between S4 of one module and S1 of the next. There are three a-helices located inside B2 and B3, as well as between B6 and B1. The N and C termini of the HeV-G head domain are connected through a disulphide linkage (C189 601). The structure is further stabilized by six additional disulphide bonds (C216 240, C282 295, C382 395, C387 499, C493 503 and C565 574), 1527786 as well as by a number of hydrogen bonds and van der Waals interactions. The central cavity of the b-propeller is funnel-shaped with the bottom face covered by the N-terminal strand and loop. The upper face is open and available for receptor binding. We observed carbohydrate moieties at all five predicted N-linked glycosylation sites (N306, N378, N417, N481 and N529), but N378 was not modeled due to the weak purchase Pluripotin electron density. The site occupancy of the predicted N-linked glycosylation sites and a detailed glycan composition analysis of recombinant soluble HeV G glycoprotein (sG) was discussed in [34].While gel-filtration and analytical ultracentrifugation indicate that the.Ccepted, model of paramyxovirus fusion suggests that upon receptor binding, the F glycoprotein is activated, presumably involving direct contacts between the attachment and fusion glycoproteins, and inserts its fusion peptide into the host cell membrane. The activation process facilitates a series of conformational changes in F and the glycoprotein transitions into its post-fusion, six-helixbundle conformation concomitant with the merging of the viral membrane envelope and the host cell plasma membrane [15]. However, all of the details of the entire receptor binding and fusion activation process have yet to be defined, and the structural characterization of the F and G glycoproteins across the various stages of these processes is essential for detailing this critical step in the virus life-cycle. The structures of HeV-G alone and the HeVG/ephrin-B2 complex were recently published [32,33], however, many important details were not revealed possibly due to the low ?resolution (3.3 A for the complex). The high-resolution structures ?described here, including both HeV-G alone (2.2 A) and in ?complex with ephrin-B2 (2.7 A), combined with structure-based mutagenesis, reveal new insights into the molecular mechanisms governing the initial steps of henipavirus entry into host cells and into the paramyxovirus entry mechanism in general.Figure 1. Structure of the HeV-G dimer. The secondary structure elements of the two molecules are colored in cyan and green. The axes of the two six-blade b-propellers are approximately perpendicular to each other. Disulfide bonds are illustrated as yellow sticks. Asparaginelinked carbohydrate modifications (glycosylations) are illustrated as grey spheres. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048742.gResults and Discussion Structure of unbound HeV-GThe HeV-G globular head domain (174?02) was expressed using the baculovirus/insect-cell system as described in the ?Materials and Methods. The structure was determined at 2.2 A resolution (Table S1) using molecular replacement with NiV-G (PDB ID 3D11) as a search model. Similar to other paramyxovirus attachment proteins, the HeV-G’s head domain folds as a sixblade (B1 6) b-propeller (Figure 1). Each blade contains four anti-parallel beta-strands (S1 4), except B6 (S1 5), which is composed of the three C-terminal strands of the protein and its two most N-terminal strands, thus forming a “velcro”-type closure. The blades are connected through extended loops between S4 of one module and S1 of the next. There are three a-helices located inside B2 and B3, as well as between B6 and B1. The N and C termini of the HeV-G head domain are connected through a disulphide linkage (C189 601). The structure is further stabilized by six additional disulphide bonds (C216 240, C282 295, C382 395, C387 499, C493 503 and C565 574), 1527786 as well as by a number of hydrogen bonds and van der Waals interactions. The central cavity of the b-propeller is funnel-shaped with the bottom face covered by the N-terminal strand and loop. The upper face is open and available for receptor binding. We observed carbohydrate moieties at all five predicted N-linked glycosylation sites (N306, N378, N417, N481 and N529), but N378 was not modeled due to the weak electron density. The site occupancy of the predicted N-linked glycosylation sites and a detailed glycan composition analysis of recombinant soluble HeV G glycoprotein (sG) was discussed in [34].While gel-filtration and analytical ultracentrifugation indicate that the.
