Extended Data Fig. 8: Analysis of CA mutant on virion morphologies and CA assemblies by TEM.

a, Representative images of mature, immature, empty, and eccentric particle morphologies; particles with 1-3 eccentric nucleoids alongside an otherwise electron-lucent core structure were grouped together. Magnification is 30,000X (scale bar, 100 nm). b, Quantitation of core morphology frequencies (average ± SD for n = 2 experiments) for WT and indicated mutant viruses. More than 200 particles were counted for each. Two-tailed Student’s t-test revealed significant differences for indicated categories versus the WT (****, P < 0.0001; ***, P < 0.001; **, P < 0.01; *, P < 0.05). For V181T, only 14 particles (predominantly immature) were observed in total. V181T was accordingly omitted from the graph and statistical analyses. c–g, Negative-stained images of WT and mutant CA assemblies. V181C forms two-dimensional crystalline sheets, whereas V181D forms tubular assemblies with much smaller diameters compared to WT tubes (17 nm vs 50 nm). Other mutants failed to form ordered assemblies. h, i, Close-up view of WT (h) and V181D (i) assemblies on the same scale. Scale bars, 200 nm in c–g, 50 nm in h, i.