Satellite Tobacco Mosaic Virus

The Satellite Tobacco Mosaic Virus or Tobacco mosaic satellivirus was first reported in Nicotiana glauca from southern California, U.S.A. by Valverde and Dodds. Its genome consists of linear single-stranded RNA. (1986)

"Satellite Tobacco Mosaic Virus is a small, icosahedral plant virus which worsens the symptoms of infection by Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV). Satellite viruses are some of the smallest possible reproducing units in nature; they achieve this by relying on both the host cell and a host virus (in this case, TMV) for the machinery necessary for them to reproduce. The entire STMV particle consists of 60 identical copies of a single protein that make up the viral capsid (coating), and a 1063-nucleotide single-stranded RNA genome which codes for the capsid and one other protein of unknown function."

"Klaus Schulten at the University of Illinois, Urbana, and his colleagues built a computer model of the satellite tobacco mosaic virus, a tiny spherical package of RNA. [...] Running on a machine at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, the program calculated how each of the million or so atoms in the virus and a surrounding drop of salt water was interacting with almost every other atom every femtosecond, or millionth of a billionth of a second. [...] The fleeting simulation, published in this month's Structure, reveals that although the virus looks symmetrical it pulses in and out asymmetrically, as if it were breathing."