PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jung, James
AU  - Grant, Timothy
AU  - Thomas, Dennis R.
AU  - Diehnelt, Chris W.
AU  - Grigorieff, Nikolaus
AU  - Joshua-Tor, Leemor
TI  - High-resolution cryo-EM structures of outbreak strain human norovirus shells reveal size variations
AID  - 10.1101/580167
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 580167
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/16/580167.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/16/580167.full
AB  - Noroviruses are a leading cause of food-borne illnesses worldwide. Although GII.4 strains have been responsible for most norovirus outbreaks, the assembled virus shell structures have been available in detail for only a single strain (GI.1). We present high-resolution (2.6-4.1 Å) cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structures of GII.4, GII.2, GI.7 and GI.1 human norovirus outbreak strain virus-like particles (VLPs). Although norovirus VLPs have been thought to exist in a single-sized assembly, our structures reveal polymorphism between and within genogroups with small, medium and large particle sizes observed. We developed a new asymmetric reconstruction method and resolved a metal ion adjacent to the co-receptor binding site, which affected the structural stability of the shell. Our structures serve as valuable templates for facilitating vaccine formulations.