Virus DNA Injection
Enrique writes:
This is the cover of the April issue of Journal of Biological Chemistry. It represents the tail of a T7 Bacteriofage (a virus) injecting its DNA into a cell. Researchers are trying to understand how the process occurs because DNA is packaged at amazingly high pressure within the virus. It is still a mystery how they release the DNA without damaging the cell.
As 90% of our job, the image was done with Blender (cycles).
Hey nice image. I think you work lot for this. It is looking real image.
Thanks!!!!
The more i see the image, the more i’m curious about the biological process :D
Verry cool……T4 was my pet vector back in the 80th if memory serves. I would suggest a mechanism by which the DNA is realesed in a controlled maner….the helical structure of the DNA itself could be the “brakedisc” and the 6 central circullary aranged molecules look a lot like brake callipers to me…..if I had a helical brakedisk that is. The outside six look like a landing gear with chemical grapling hooks. Virusses and especially bacteriofages are smarter then you would imagine, in my eyes they are biochemical and evolutionary marvels. Great to see Blender (my new pet) used in this way.
Greets, Ed,
Well, I’m afraid the paper is not open… :-(
http://www.jbc.org/content/290/16/10038
Were the molecules modeled by hand, or did you use a molecular modeling program?
The different parts of the virus (the molecules) were provided by the researchers. We only placed them, textured them and compose the image.