Biophysics Lecture

Mechanisms of Biological Dynamics Determined from Studies of Virus Particle Maturation

Jack Johnson, Eldon R. Strahm Endowed Chair in Structural Virology, Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute,

The accessibility of bacteriophage maturation to structural, biophysical and genetic methods has enhanced our understanding of novel processes in biological dynamics. These include identifying mechanisms that create energy landscapes for exothermic virus maturation as well as discovering a means of directing the effects of thermal fluctuations for particle development through a Brownian ratchet. The encoded program that directs particle maturation (a biological nano-machine) will be described. Gertsman, I., Gan, L., Guttman, M., Lee, K., Speir, J. A., Duda, R. L., Hendrix, R. W., Komives, E. A., and Johnson, J. E. 2009. An unexpected twist in viral capsid maturation. Nature 458:646-651. Johnson, J. E. 2010. Virus particle maturation: insights into elegantly programmed nanomachines. Curr Opin Struct Biol 20:210-6.

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