2.5 Homology modeling of the capsid protein VP7 of the G8 strain
A homology model of the outer capsid protein VP7 was constructed using the G3 VP7 trimer in complex with a neutralizing Fab (PDB: 3FMG) as a template. Amino acid sequences of the target and template demonstrated high sequence similarity of 87%, indicating that the 3FMG was a suitable template for generating the comparative model. The VP7 model of G8 was then predicted using Chimera interface to Modeller. The trimer model of the G8 virion was created by superimposing each monomer model with each chain in the trimeric structure of 3FMG.PDB1 biological assembly 1 using ChimeraX. The trimer shape of the VP7 homology model was visualized, and the amino acid substitutions on the exposed surface of the outer capsid structure were colored and labelled using Chimera.