SV40 Capsid Simplified
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This model is based on the crystallographic solution of the VP1 capsid protein of Simian Virus 40, published in 1sva.
The asymmetric unit of 1sva contains a pentamer of the VP1 protein plus one extra chain. The entire capsid was constructed from 1sva by the Probable Quaternary Structure server (of the European Bioinformatics Institute) using symmetry operations specified in 1sva.pdb (REMARK 350). The resulting capsid model contains 360 chains of VP1 protein arranged as 72 pentamers in an icosahedron (12 faces). The PDB atomic coordinate file for the capsid, containing all non-hydrogen protein atoms, is 70 megabytes in size.
In the highly simplified model at the right, each protein chain was reduced to a single atom (resulting in 360 atoms). The distances between atoms were then greatly reduced to enable Jmol (and other common [visualization programs]) to display the model easily, with overlapping "atomic" spheres to simulate the capsid.