{"doi":"10.1016/j.sbi.2024.102945","title":"The mechano-chemistry of a viral genome packaging motor","abstract":"Double-stranded DNA viruses actively package their genomes into pre-assembled protein capsids using energy derived from virus-encoded ASCE ATPase ring motors. Single molecule experiments in the aughts and early 2010s demonstrated that these motors are some of the most powerful molecular motors in nature, and that the activities of individual subunits around the ATPase ring motor are highly coordinated to ensure efficient genome encapsidation. While these studies provided a comprehensive kinetic scheme describing the events that occur during packaging, the physical basis of force generation and subunit coordination remained elusive. This article reviews recent structural and computational results that have begun to illuminate the molecular basis of force generation and DNA translocation in these powerful molecular motors. • Single molecule, structural and computational studies on viral dsDNA packaging motors have illuminated the underlying mechano-chemistry of genome packaging by dsDNA viruses. • A proposed helical-to-planar ratchet mechanism is consistent with all available data for genome packaging by the dsDNA bacteriophage phi29, a model system for studying packaging. • Recent results suggest how multifunctional viral genome packaging motors transition between different functional states.","journal":"Current Opinion in Structural Biology","year":2024,"id":455021,"datarank":0.35502978425332454,"base_score":2.0794415416798357,"endowment":2.0794415416798357,"self_citation_contribution":0.31191623125197543,"citation_network_contribution":0.04311355300134912,"self_endowment_contribution":0.31191623125197543,"citer_contribution":0.04311355300134912,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":5,"citers_with_citation_signal":3,"citers_with_endowment":3,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9487,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":266753,"name":"Nikolai S. Prokhorov","orcid":"0000-0001-9621-0245","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":371053,"name":"Paul J. Jardine","orcid":"0000-0002-1090-0550","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":254591,"name":"Marc C. Morais","orcid":"0000-0002-1057-0934","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":557016,"name":"Joshua Pajak","orcid":"0000-0001-5781-0870","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":57,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:03:17.458329Z","pmid":"39500074","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}