Epic Quest Bio The case files
Case No. 130 · the exotic forty · have you seen this molecule?

HK97 capsid

the virus that wears chainmail

File sealed

The detectives are still writing this one up. The poster and the facts are below; the film and the interrogation room open soon.

Booking photographs

HK97 capsid, front view, against a height chart in nanometers
FRONT
HK97 capsid, side view
SIDE · PDB 1OHG

The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, a line every 10 nm. One bead per amino acid. An E. coli is about thirty times longer.

Rap sheet

Answers to
HK97 capsid, or Head II.
Height
66 nm, standing on a corner.
Weight
21 attograms, empty.
Build
420 copies of one protein, joined by 420 bonds into rings of five and six.
Topology
Linked rings, like chainmail. The first ever found in a protein.
Habits
Welds itself: a lysine, an asparagine, and a glutamate from a third part.
Marks
1.8 nm thick at most. Its density map looks like a balloon.
Weakness
In the wild, one corner is a door: a 12-part portal.
Last seen
In a crystal, empty, grown in E. coli.
72

rings of protein in one shell: 12 of five, 60 of six.
You’ve never seen one.

CASE FILE: Wikoff, W. R. et al. (2000) Topologically linked protein rings in the bacteriophage HK97 capsid. Science 289, 2129–2133.

The poster on the street

The wanted poster for HK97 capsid

This is the photocopied wanted poster for HK97 capsid, No. 130 of the exotic forty. They were made for noticeboards around Boston, Cambridge and the rest of the east coast.

Found one? Scan its QR code with your phone. If you're a signed-in player, the sighting goes on your record with +1 XP.

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