JCB logo
BD Biosciences
  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents

Published 25 April 2005. doi:10.1083/jcb.200412169
The Rockefeller University Press, 0021-9525 $8.00
JCB, Volume 169, Number 2, 269-283
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow PDF (Full Text)
Right arrow PPT slides of all figures
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new content in the JCB
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Heuser, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Heuser, J.
Related Collections
Right arrowRelated Article
Social Bookmarking
 Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

Article

Deep-etch EM reveals that the early poxvirus envelope is a single membrane bilayer stabilized by a geodetic "honeycomb" surface coat

John Heuser

Department of Cell Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110

Correspondence to J. Heuser: jheuser{at}cellbiology.wustl.edu

Three-dimensional "deep-etch" electron microscopy (DEEM) resolves a longstanding controversy concerning poxvirus morphogenesis. By avoiding fixative-induced membrane distortions that confounded earlier studies, DEEM shows that the primary poxvirus envelope is a single membrane bilayer coated on its external surface by a continuous honeycomb lattice. Freeze fracture of quick-frozen poxvirus-infected cells further shows that there is only one fracture plane through this primary envelope, confirming that it consists of a single lipid bilayer. DEEM also illustrates that the honeycomb coating on this envelope is completely replaced by a different paracrystalline coat as the poxvirus matures. Correlative thin section images of infected cells freeze substituted after quick-freezing, plus DEEM imaging of Tokuyasu-type cryo-thin sections of infected cells (a new application introduced here) all indicate that the honeycomb network on immature poxvirus virions is sufficiently continuous and organized, and tightly associated with the envelope throughout development, to explain how its single lipid bilayer could remain stable in the cytoplasm even before it closes into a complete sphere.

Abbreviations used in this paper: 3-D, three-dimensional; DEEM, deep-etch EM; IMV, intracellular mature virion; IV, immature virion.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Related Article

Lattice supports single bilayer
Nicole LeBrasseur
J. Cell Biol. 2005 169: 213. [Full Text] [PDF]



This article has been cited by other articles:



  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents