Our work addresses how viruses assemble precisely into the proper size and shape. Assembly of a virus is a highly coordinated process involving sequential addition of multiple proteins, ultimately leading to an infectious virion. In the tailed phages, herpesviruses, adenoviruses, and many other dsDNA viruses, the initial product of assembly is a precursor capsid (the protein shell of a virus) known as the procapsid, which undergoes a series of reactions to become the final mature capsid.
In tailed phages, some archaeal viruses and herpesviruses, the capsids are assembled from coat proteins with the HK97 fold. Our primary model is bacteriophage P22. One question we ask is how weak interactions between individual proteins support assembly of a whole virus? Another question is how evolution has changed the way the capsid proteins function with one another by comparing the capsid interactions in similar but distantly related phages or even between P22 and herpesvirus.
These are NMR structures of the inserted domains found in distantly related phages.
Current lab members:
Juliana Cortines, Post-doctoral scholar, visiting from Univ. of Rio de Janeiro
Charles Bridges, Post-doctoral scholar
Makayla Leroux , PhD student
Garrett Skids, MS student
Sichu Wang, MS student
UConn Collaborators:
Richard Whitehead, PhD student
Virology MCB 3246/5240
Virology is a 3 credit hour course designed for upper level undergraduate students and graduate students. This course is intended to provide a foundation to understanding virus architecture and nomenclature, virus replication cycles, mechanisms for virus entry and exit from host cells, host responses to infection, research methods and more. Specific viral diseases are discussed.
Virus Hunting MCB 1200
Virus Hunters is a unique classroom-based undergraduate research experience that is part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science Education Alliance Phage Research Program (SEA-PHAGES). It spans two terms (with MCB 1201, Phage Genome Bioinformatics) and culminates in a research symposium held at HHMI’s Janelia campus. Throughout this semester, you will learn about the biology of bacterial viruses by identifying a new one from the environment. Your work will be connected to a larger community of undergraduate and graduate level research scientists that are exploring the biology and evolution of bacteriophages. MCB 1200 can be used to meet General Education requirements.
