Journal: iScience
Article Title: In silico reconstruction of a salmonid alphavirus virion reveals distinctive molecular features implicated in virulence
doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2026.115070
Figure Lengend Snippet: In vitro biochemical analysis and in silico modeling of SAV E3E2 furin cleavage and comparison with CHIKV (A) SAV E3 C-term furin cleavage site (FCS) and E2 N-term. Position of the FCS, amino acid composition, triplet 7-8-9 and E2 N-term insert α-helix are shown. The residues involved in the E2 N-term α-helix predicted by AlphaFold3, RoseTTAFold, and PsiPred are depicted as helical cartoons. (B) Biochemical analysis of cleavage status of p62 in infected cells and purified SAV virions. Western blot analysis was performed on lysates of mock-infected (lane 1) or SAV2-infected BF-2 cells at an m.o.i. of 1 (lane 2) or 5 (lane 3) or on sucrose cushion-purified SAV2 virions (lane 4). Western blot analyses performed using anti-E2 (17H23) or anti-E1 (78K5) mAbs. GAPDH detection was used as loading control for cell lysates. (C) Structural modeling of SAV p62 (E3E2) cleavage by furin. SAV E1 ecto , E2 ecto , and E3 were modeled as complexes using AlphaFold 3. Top corresponds to uncleaved p62 (E3E2), middle corresponds to E3 cleaved from E2 with E3 remaining non-covalently linked, and bottom corresponds to E1 and E2 ectodomains after E3 release. Arrows indicate location of E2 N-term ɑ-helix and 7-8-9 triplet. The models are colored using AlphaFold pLDDT confidence scoring. (D) Structural alignment of CHIKV and SAV uncleaved p62. The uncleaved model of SAV p62 (pink) was structurally aligned with the crystal structure of CHIKV p62 (gold, PDB: 3n40 ) using MatchMaker in ChimeraX. For panels C and D, structure labeling, representation, and scale bars were visualized using ChimeraX.
Article Snippet: Crystal structure of the immature envelope glycoprotein complex of Chikungunya virus , Protein DataBank (PDB) , 3n40.
Techniques: In Vitro, In Silico, Comparison, Infection, Purification, Western Blot, Control, Labeling