Cover image

Bacteriophage ϕ29 prohead RNA (PDB id: 1FOQ; Simpson AA, Tao Y, Leiman PG, Badasso MO, He Y, Jardine PJ, Olson NH, Morais MC, Grimes S, Anderson DL, Baker TS, Rossmann MG. 2000. Structure of the bacteriophage ϕ29 DNA packaging motor. Nature 408: 745–750). The ϕ29 capsid prohead was reconstructed both in the presence and absence of prohead RNA using cryo-EM. Fivefold symmetry averaged difference density was then fitted with a 120 nt prohead RNA model as shown. The bacteriophage prohead is part of the rotary motor that loads viral genomic DNA into the bacteriophage capsid. RNA is displayed in NDB colors: A—red, C—yellow, G—green, U—cyan. Cover image provided by the Nucleic Acid Knowledgebase (nakb.org). Image created using Mol* (Sehnal et al. 2021. Nucleic Acids Res 49: W431–W437).