Multimedia Gallery - First all-atom structure of an HIV virus capsid in its tubular form.

March 21, 2012

First all-atom structure of an HIV virus capsid in its tubular form.

From Klaus Schulten's project about HIV infection, this image is of the first all-atom structure of an HIV virus capsid in its tubular form. Schulten and his team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are studying the protein capsid that encases the HIV-1 genome. The process through which this capsid disassembles, releasing its genetic material, is a critical step in HIV infection. Schulten's group will simulate a cylindrical capsid consisting of 12.5 million atoms.

Credit: Courtesy of Klaus Schulten, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group/Beckman Institute; Angela Gronenborn and Peijun Zhang, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Center for HIV Protein Interactions/Department of Structural Biology.

Images credited to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, are in the public domain. The images were created by employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties or prepared by contractors as "works for hire" for NSF. You may freely use NSF-credited images and, at your discretion, credit NSF with a "Courtesy: National Science Foundation" notation.

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