How Coronaviruses Get into Cells – Tom Goddard (2020) / ChimeraX

Tom Goddard is the developer of a fantastically successful free molecular visualization program ChimeraX in the University of California at San Francisco with support from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Here in this augmented reality projection, he explains how coronaviruses manage to enter cells of the host and take over the machinery which spark a viral infection. He takes a peek at the HIV packing structure and delves into structures human coronaviruses use. Spikes on their surfaces are critical. Using free program ChimeraX, Tom guides us through the high resolution electron microscopy images converted into human eye friendly representations. He paints subunits with different colors, show residues in ribbon, ball and stick, surface and all-atom versions.

The BBC Documentary The Hidden Life of the Cell has done a wonderful job of providing a visual story telling by animating series of events leading to an Adenovirus infection. Here we can see how the computational tools such as ChimeraX forms a firm foundation to create scenes carrying documentary value.

The visualizations include a few antibodies designed as a vaccine. These antibodies bind and block spike protein latch sites on coronavirus surface. Resources used in this augmented reality lecture are:

Cryo-EM structure of the SARS coronavirus spike glycoprotein in complex with its host cell receptor ACE2.

Coronavirus Cell Recognition.

You can learn more about biological molecules in the Molecular Nature category.

 

1 Comment

  1. Jonalyn says:

    Super interesting, thank you!

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Nature Documentaries shared on wplocker.com