期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1979
卷号：76
期号：6
页码：2745-2749
DOI：10.1073/pnas.76.6.2745
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：The mechanism of assembly of tobacco mosaic virus has been investigated under conditions in which the rates of incorporation of the 4S and 20S proteins can each be directly measured by analytical centfrifugation. Under these conditions, pH 6.5, 6.5 degrees C, 0.10 M ionic strength potassium orthophosphate, the protein can be made to exist as a metastable 20S aggregate that is necessary for efficient reconstitution. The overall assembly process consists of an initiation (nucleation) reaction that requires two to three 20S disk aggregates per RNA molecule and is followed by an elongation (growth) reaction. In the elongation phase of assembly the 4S protein is incorporated 50 to 70 times faster than the 20S disk, calculated on the basis of a steady-state kinetic analysis. Therefore, under these conditions, in which the rate of assembly is about 0.06 of that at pH 7, 20 degrees C, 0.10 M ionic strength orthophosphate, the 4S protein preferentially participates in the elongation phase. At this slow reconstitution rate intermediate assembly states (about 70-168 S) can be observed. The kinetics of both protein incorporation and nucleoprotein formation suggest that the elongation process is composed of at least two different, possibly sequential, rate-limiting reactions.
