MicrobeWorld

Since electron micrographs first revealed the bullet-shaped morphology of vesicular stomatitis virus (a virus related to rabies virus), understanding the architecture has been elusive. It was known that the RNA genome is wrapped in a helical structure by the viral nucleocapsid (N) protein, but how this structure was encased by the viral matrix (M) protein and the envelope was not clear. These questions have been elegantly answered by a new model of the VSV virion determined by cryo-electron microscopy.