OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Potato virus Y (PVY) is the type member of the genus Potyvirus, which includes some of the most destructive plant viruses. PVY has been placed on a Top 5 list of scientifically and economically important plant viruses, affecting potato, tomato, tobacco, pepper as well as ornamentals and weeds. PVY virions are assembled of a positive sense single stranded RNA, enveloped with approximately 2000 copies of a coat protein (CP) to form flexuous filaments 740 nm in length and 12 nm in diameter. Expression of recombinant CP in bacteria results in formation of self-assembled flexuous filaments called virus like particles (VLPs), which are devoid of viral RNA and thus non-infectious. In my talk I will show our recent results on near-atomic cryo-EM structures of both, PVY virions (‘bad guys’) and VLPs (‘good guys’), revealing unique structural features of PVY and significant differences between the two types of filaments. Furthermore, I will also discuss the potential of VLPs for use in (bio)technology.
