Prof. José Ruiz Castón - CASTON

Group of "Lab of Viral Molecular Machines" 

Centro Nacional de Biotencología

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

C/ Darwin, 3

Campus de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

28049 Madrid, España

Telf.: +34 915854971

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Group of "Lab of Viral Molecular Machines" :

Our studies address to elucidate structure-function-evolution relationships of viral macromolecular complexes, which control many fundamental processes in virus life cycle. Our model systems of viral molecular machines are the viral capsid and other viral macromolecular complexes, such as helical tubular structures and ribonucleoprotein complexes. We are investigating several viral systems with different levels of complexity: double-stranded (ds)RNA viruses such as infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), Penicillium chrysogenum virus (PcV) and human picobirnavirus (HPBV), and single-stranded RNA viruses as human rhinovirus 2 (HRV2) and rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV). To reveal the three-dimensional structure of such complex assemblies we use hybrid methods that combine cryo-electron microscopy and image processing techniques with high-resolution X-ray structures.Recently, we have solved several capsid structures at atomic resolution directly from cryo-images.

Relevant publications in the last five years:

- D. Luque, J. Gómez-Blanco, D. Garriga, A.F: Brilot, J.M. González, W.M. Havens, J.L. Carrascosa, B.L. Trus, N. Verdaguer,S.A: ghabrial and J.R. Castón* (2014).. Cryo-EM near-atomic structure of a dsRNA fungal virus shows ancient structural motifs preserved in the dsRNA viral lineage. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 111: 7641-7646.

- D. Luque, A. de la Escosura, J. Snijder, M. Brasch, R.J. Burnley, M.S.T. Koay, J.L. Carrascosa, G.J.L. Wuite, W.H. Roos, A.J.R. Heck, J.J.L.M. Cornelissen, T. Torres and J.R. Castón* (2014). Self-assembly and characterization of small and    monodisperse dye nanospheres in a protein cage. Chem. Science 5: 575-581.

- A. Pickl-Herk, D. Luque, L. Vives_Adrián, J. Querol-Audi, D. Garriga, B.L. Trus, N. Verdaguer, D. Blaas and  J.R. Castón* (2013). Uncoating of common cold virus is preceded by RNA switching as determined by X-ray and cryo-EM analyses of the subviral A-particle. Proc Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 110: 20063-20068.

- J.R. Castón*, D. Luque, J. Gómez-Blanco and S.A. Ghabrial (2013). Chrysovirus structure:  repeated helical core as evidence of gene duplication Adv. Vir. Res. 86: 87-108.

- J. Gómez-Blanco, D. Luque, J.M. González, J.L. Carrascosa, C. Alfonso, B.L. Trus, W.M. Havens, S.A. Ghabrial and J.R. Castón* (2012). Cryphonectria nitschkei virus 1 structure shows that the capsid 1 protein of chrysoviruses is a duplicated helix-rich fold conserved in fungal double-stranded RNA viruses. J. Virol. 86: 8314-8318.

Lab of Viral molecular machines