METHODOLOGY The development and app

Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) has a rod-like appearance and consists of a single, positive strand RNA of 6395 nucleotides encapsulated in a helical virion by approxi-mately 2130 identical coat protein (CP) subunits [1-7]. CP consists of 158 amino acids that were assembled into four main alpha-helices joined by a prominent loop proximal to the axis of the virion [8-16]. TMV-CP played an important role in the self-assembly of TMV through an initial RNA recognition reaction that triggers the assembly, it was believed to be necessary for virus assembly initiation and elongation [8,17-24]. The bio-logical physical properties of TMV-CP were often deter-mined by the structure of TMV. The TMV structure reported in 1986 was studied based on an electron dens-ity map at 3.6 Å resolution by X-ray fiber diffraction [9]