It could be an artist’s depiction of someone’s stomach before and after a rather decadent meal. But it is a 3-D cryoelectron microscope reconstruction of the cross-section of a virus, before and after cramming itself full of its own DNA.The virus, phi29, has a tiny motor that pumps its DNA into the capsid—outer shell—during the assembly process. The potential energy of the tightly coiled DNA may help phi29 inject its genetic material into the bacterial cells it infects. Now a team led by physicists at the University of California, San Diego has used laser tweezers to measure the forces exerted by the motor as it pushes the DNA into the capsid.
