ViralZone and the Revolution in 3D Virus Structure

This course will be streamed to registered participants only.

Overview

ViralZone is a SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics web resource for all viral genera and families. It provides molecular biology information on all kind of viruses, and bridges knowledge to virus or sequence databases. For each virus or family page, ViralZone provides easy access to the corresponding UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot and GenBank viral protein entries. It also contains virion and genome images.

Although viral genomes exhibit immense genomic variation, most viral proteins are limited in structural space. Researchers have recently used AlphaFold2 to successfully predict the shape of viral proteins. Three new datasets of viral models have been made available and accessible via ViralZone: Doudna, BFVD and Viro3D. New tools such as Foldseek make it possible to assign a function to previously unknown proteins based on structural similarity. The predicted structures can be analyzed with Foldtree to create structure-based phylogenetic trees. In addition, AlphaFold3 was published a few months ago, which further expands the prediction of viral models

This webinar (2 x 45min) provides an introduction to the structural knowledge of viral proteins and the main tools available to study them.

Audience

This course is addressed to students, postdocs, and researchers, from any scientific environment (academia, facilities, companies, etc.) interested in viral proteins.

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the participants are expected to:

• describe the most important viral folds in all of virology
• understand the 3D model datasets available in various databases to find the best 3D models of viral proteins
• use new available tools to create 3D models, search for homologies or create trees

Prerequisites

Knowledge / competencies

You should meet the learning outcomes of the e-learning course ViralZone: Studying viral diversity.

Technical

This webinar will be streamed, you are thus required to have your own computer with an Internet connection. All the suggested resources are available without you having to install or code anything.

Application

Attendance is free-of-charge; however, registration is mandatory.

Venue and Time

This webinar will be streamed using Zoom. It will start at 15:00 CET (09:00 EST) and end around 17:00 CET (11:00 EST).

All registered participants will receive the information for remotely connecting to the online meeting room by email one working day before the webinar.

Additional information

Coordination: Monique Zahn, SIB Training group.

You are welcome to register to the SIB courses mailing list to be informed of all future courses and workshops, as well as all important deadlines using the form here.

Please note that participation in SIB courses is subject to our general conditions.

SIB abides by the ELIXIR Code of Conduct. Participants of SIB courses are also required to abide by the same code.

For more information, please contact training@sib.swiss.