Lambda-like dsDNA bacteriophage undergo massive conformational changes in their capsid shell during the packaging of their viral genomes. Capsid shells are complex organizations of hundreds of protein subunits that assemble into intricate quaternary complexes that ultimately are able to withstand over 50 atm. of pressure during genome packaging. The extensive integration between subunits in capsids is unlikely to form in a single assembly step, therefore requiring formation of an intermediate complex, termed a procapsid, from which individual subunits can undergo the necessary refolding and structural rearrangements needed to transition to the more stable capsid. Though various mature capsids have been characterized at atomic resolution, no such procapsid structure is available for a dsDNA virus or bacteriophage that undergoes large scale conformational changes. We present a procapsid x-ray structure at 3.65Å resolution, termed Prohead II, of the lambda like bacteriophage HK97, whose mature capsid structure was previously solved to 3.44 Å2. A comparison of the two largely different capsid forms has unveiled an unprecedented expansion mechanism that describes the transition. Crystallographic and Hydrogen/Deuterium exchange data presented here demonstrates that the subunit tertiary structures are significantly different between the two states, with twisting and bending motions occurring in both helical and β-sheet regions. We have also discovered conserved subunit interactions at each 3-fold of the virus capsid, from which capsid subunits maintain their integrity during refolding, facilitating the rotational and translational motions of maturation. Calormetric data of a closely related bacteriophage, P22, showed that capsid maturation was an exothermic process that resulted in a release of 90KJ/mol of energy. We propose the major tertiary changes presented in this study reveal a structural basis for an exothermic maturation process likely present in many dsDNA Bacteriophage and possibly viruses such as Herpes which share the HK97 subunit fold.
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