Although the structures of viral capsids have been studied extensively for more than 50 years, the precise structures of genomes and associative proteins within icosahedral capsid remained unknown. Here, we present a new method on symmetry-mismatch reconstruction. Used the new method, we resolved the structures of both dsRNA genome and RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRps) within viruses. Our structural analysis reveals the symmetry-mismatch relationship between capsid and genome and the interactions between genome and RdRps. Our work fills a gap in understanding the precise dynamic processes inside the RdRp molecule. Most importantly, our new method opens a way for structural determination of lower-symmetry complexes enclosed in a higher-symmetry structure.

刘红荣，湘潭大学博士，美国加州大学洛杉矶分校(UCLA)博士后，教授，博士生导师。近年来主要从事凝聚态物理及其交叉学科，具体包括冷冻电镜生物大分子三维重构的关键算法研究；生物大分子结构与功能研究；生物成像；电子显微图像图像处理等方面的研究工作，在Science, PNAS, J Virol, J Mol Biol, J Struct Biol, Adv Funct Mater, Ultramicroscopy, Micron, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.等重要学术期刊发表论文40余篇。主持/参与国家自然科学基金、教育部、省教育厅、省科技厅项目10余项。刘红荣教授于今年9月在《Science》杂志发表了与清华大学生命科学学院程凌鹏副研究员合作的研究论文“冷冻电镜揭示双链RNA病毒内部聚合酶和病毒基因组的非线轴结构”。该研究提出了一种基于二维电子显微图像重构对称失配生物大分子三维结构的新方法，首次揭示了病毒内部基因组及其聚合酶的三维结构。