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Home > Research Leaders > A to G > John Briggs
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John Briggs

Enveloped viruses and coated vesicles - electron cryo-microscopy and tomography

jbriggs@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
Personal group site

We study the structure and the molecular assembly mechanisms of important, pathogenic, enveloped viruses (e.g. HIV and Influenza virus), and of cellular trafficking vesicles (e.g. clathrin and COPI coated vesicles). Viruses and vesicles are extraordinary self-assembling machines – the protein building blocks interact with one another to bring all the components or cargo together, to reshape the lipid bilayer, and to release a free virus or vesicle. The building blocks will often then undergo an intricate reassembly to prepare for fusion with a target cell or membrane. The level of understanding we aim to achieve could be imagined as a 3D, functionally annotated movie, with molecular resolution, showing the assembly and budding process.

To reach this goal we need to obtain detailed structural information at different stages during assembly, ideally under close-to-native conditions, even within cells. This is a challenge for conventional structural biology tools, so we are also developing and applying new approaches for electron cryo-microscopy and tomography, correlated fluorescence and electron microscopy, and image processing.

Structure of the HIV-1 capsid core determined inside the virus by cryo-electron tomography (Mattei et al., Science, 2016).
Structure of the HIV-1 capsid core determined inside the virus by electron-cryo tomography (Mattei et al., Science, 2016).

Selected Papers

  • Peukes, J., Xiong, X., Erlendsson, S., Qu, K., Wan, W., Calder, L.J., Schraidt, O., Kummer, S., Freund, S.M.V., Kräusslich, H.G., Briggs, J.A.G. (2020)
    The native structure of the assembled matrix protein 1 of influenza A virus
    Nature, [Epub ahead of print]
  • Ke, Z., Oton, J., Qu, K., Cortese, M., Zila, V., McKeane, L., Nakane, T., Zivanov, J., Neufeldt, C.J., Cerikan, B., Lu, J.M., Peukes, J., Xiong, X., Kräusslich, H.G., Scheres, S.H.W., Bartenschlager, R., Briggs, J.A.G. (2020)
    Structures and distributions of SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins on intact virions.
    Nature, [Epub ahead of print]
  • Kovtun, O., Leneva, N., Bykov, Y.S., Ariotti, N., Teasdale, R.D., Schaffer, M., Engel, B.D., Owen, D.J., Briggs, J.A.G., Collins, B.M. (2018)
    Structure of the membrane-assembled retromer coat determined by cryo-electron tomography.
    Nature 561(7724): 561-564.
  • Wan, W., Kolesnikova, L., Clarke, M., Koehler, A., Noda, T., Becker, S., Briggs, J.A.G. (2017)
    Structure and assembly of the Ebola virus nucleocapsid
    Nature 551: 394-397
  • Mattei, S., Glass, B., Hagen, W.J., Kräusslich, H.G. and Briggs, J.A (2016)
    The structure and flexibility of conical HIV-1 capsids determined within intact virions.
    Science 6318: 1434-1437
  • Schur, F.K., Obr, M., Hagen, W.J., Wan, W., Jakobi, A.J., Kirkpatrick, J.M., Sachse, C., Kräusslich, H.G. and Briggs, J.A. (2016)
    An atomic model of HIV-1 capsid-SP1 reveals structures regulating assembly and maturation.
    Science 353(6298): 506-508
  • Dodonova, S.O., Diestelkoetter-Bachert, P., von Appen, A., Hagen, W.J., Beck, R., Beck, M., Wieland, F. and Briggs, J.A. (2015)
    VESICULAR TRANSPORT. A structure of the COPI coat and the role of coat proteins in membrane vesicle assembly.
    Science 349(6244): 195-198
  • Avinoam, O., Schorb, M., Beese, C.J., Briggs, J.A. and Kaksonen, M. (2015)
    ENDOCYTOSIS. Endocytic sites mature by continuous bending and remodeling of the clathrin coat.
    Science 348(6241): 1369-1372
  • Schur, F.K., Hagen, W.J., Rumlová, M., Ruml, T., Müller, B., Kräusslich, H.G. and Briggs, J.A. (2015)
    Structure of the immature HIV-1 capsid in intact virus particles at 8.8 Å resolution.
    Nature 517(7535): 505-508

Group Members

  • Katarzyna Ciazynska
  • Kyle Dent
  • Simon Erlendsson
  • Zunlong Ke
  • Oleksiy Kovtun
  • Natalya Leneva
  • Joaquin Oton Perez
  • Kun Qu
  • James Stacey
  • Xiaoli Xiong

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Research Leaders

  • A to G
    • Radu Aricescu
    • David Barford
    • Buzz Baum
    • Anne Bertolotti
    • Mariann Bienz
    • John Briggs
    • Simon Bullock
    • Albert Cardona
    • Andrew Carter
    • Jason Chin
    • Gerry Crossan
    • Emmanuel Derivery
    • Benjamin Falcon
    • Michel Goedert
    • Julian Gough
    • Ingo Greger
  • H to M
    • Michael Hastings
    • Ramanujan Hegde
    • Richard Henderson
    • Philipp Holliger
    • Leo James
    • Gregory Jefferis
    • Patrycja Kozik
    • Madeline Lancaster
    • Jan Löwe
    • Kate McDole
    • Andrew McKenzie
    • Harvey McMahon
    • Liz Miller
    • Sean Munro
    • Garib Murshudov
  • N to S
    • Kiyoshi Nagai (1949-2019)
    • David Neuhaus
    • Kelly Nguyen
    • John O’Neill
    • Lori Passmore
    • Venki Ramakrishnan
    • Felix Randow
    • Jing Ren
    • Katja Röper
    • Christopher Russo
    • Julian Sale
    • William Schafer
    • Sjors Scheres
    • Marta Shahbazi
    • John Sutherland
  • T to Z
    • Chris Tate
    • Rebecca Taylor
    • Marco Tripodi
    • Ana Tufegdzic Vidakovic
    • Roger Williams
    • Joseph Yeeles
    • Marta Zlatic
  • Emeritus
    • Brad Amos
    • Tony Crowther
    • Phil Evans
    • Alan Fersht
    • Michael Gait
    • Rob Kay
    • John Kendrick-Jones
    • John Kilmartin
    • Peter Lawrence
    • Andrew Leslie
    • Hugh Pelham
    • Daniela Rhodes
    • Murray Stewart
    • Andrew Travers
    • Nigel Unwin
    • Greg Winter
  • LMB Fellows
  • Molecular Immunity Unit

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