Comparative cryo-EM structures of CGMMV and ToMMV reveal divergent coat protein packing and electrostatics indicating Tobamovirus host specificity

Cryo-EM structures of CGMMV and ToMMV show divergent coat protein packing and electrostatics, with CGMMV forming more stable, compact assemblies at 2.86 Å resolution.

• Why it matters: Tobamoviruses are highly persistent yet strongly host-family specific, and the structural basis for how similar virions adapt to different hosts remains unclear.
• What they did: The authors determined cryo-EM structures of CGMMV (2.86 Å) and ToMMV (2.71 Å) and used comparative biophysical and molecular dynamics analyses to assess packing stability and electrostatic features.
• The result: CGMMV uses a more hydrophobic packing strategy and exhibits an electrostatic patch in the lower alpha-helix region linked to RNA stabilization, with host-family-specific amino acid substitutions among Tobamoviruses.

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