ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2009
The Q motif of a viral packaging motor governs its force generation and communicates ATP recognition to DNA interaction.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 50 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cryo-EM structures of human FANCJ reveal the mechanism of G-quadruplex unwinding and disease-associated mutations.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Dynamics of viral self-assembly, viral genome packaging, and virus-cell interactions studied by optical tweezers.European biophysics journal : EBJ · 2026Review
- Uncovering viral protein acquisition events and human-specific folds with pairwise comparisons of predicted protein structures.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Methods for Studying Motor-Driven Viral DNA Packaging in Bacteriophages phi29, Lambda, and T4 via Single DNA Molecule Manipulation and Rapid Solution Exchange.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2025Article
- Optical Tweezers to Study Viruses.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2024Review
- Molecular dynamics of DNA translocation by FtsK.Nucleic acids research · 2022Article
- Atomistic basis of force generation, translocation, and coordination in a viral genome packaging motor.Nucleic acids research · 2021Article
- Functional Dissection of a Viral DNA Packaging Machine's Walker B Motif.Journal of molecular biology · 2019Article
- Evidence that a catalytic glutamate and an 'Arginine Toggle' act in concert to mediate ATP hydrolysis and mechanochemical coupling in a viral DNA packaging motor.Nucleic acids research · 2019Article
- Experimental comparison of forces resisting viral DNA packaging and driving DNA ejection.Physical review. E · 2017Article
- Walker-A Motif Acts to Coordinate ATP Hydrolysis with Motor Output in Viral DNA Packaging.Journal of molecular biology · 2016Article
- Mechanisms of DNA Packaging by Large Double-Stranded DNA Viruses.Annual review of virology · 2015Review
- Bacteriophage lambda: Early pioneer and still relevant.Virology · 2015Review
- Continuous allosteric regulation of a viral packaging motor by a sensor that detects the density and conformation of packaged DNA.Biophysical journal · 2015Article
- Article
- Molecular interactions and residues involved in force generation in the T4 viral DNA packaging motor.Journal of molecular biology · 2014Article
- Designing a nine cysteine-less DNA packaging motor from bacteriophage T4 reveals new insights into ATPase structure and function.Virology · 2014Article
- Evidence for an electrostatic mechanism of force generation by the bacteriophage T4 DNA packaging motor.Nature communications · 2014Article
- Nonequilibrium dynamics and ultraslow relaxation of confined DNA during viral packaging.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2014Article
- Mechanical operation and intersubunit coordination of ring-shaped molecular motors: insights from single-molecule studies.Biophysical journal · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
A key step in the assembly of many viruses is the packaging of DNA into preformed procapsids by an ATP-powered molecular motor. To shed light on the motor mechanism we used single-molecule optical tweezers measurements to study the effect of mutations in the large terminase subunit in bacteriophage lambda on packaging motor dynamics. A mutation, K84A, in the putative ATPase domain driving DNA translocation was found to decrease motor velocity by approximately 40% but did not change the force dependence or decrease processivity substantially. These findings support the hypothesis that a deviant "Walker A-like" phosphate-binding motif lies adjacent to residue 84. Another mutation, Y46F, was also found to decrease motor velocity by approximately 40% but also increase slipping during DNA translocation by >10-fold. These findings support the hypothesis that viral DNA packaging motors contain an adenine-binding motif that regulates ATP hydrolysis and substrate affinity analogous to the "Q motif" recently identified in DEAD-box RNA helicases. We also find impaired force generation for the Y46F mutant, which shows that the Q motif plays an important role in determining the power and efficiency of the packaging motor.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.