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Abstract

Ebola and Marburg viruses are filoviruses: filamentous, enveloped viruses that cause haemorrhagic fever(1). Filoviruses are within the order Mononegavirales(2), which also includes rabies virus, measles virus, and respiratory syncytial virus. Mononegaviruses have non-segmented, single-stranded negative-sense RNA genomes that are encapsidated by nucleoprotein and other viral proteins to form a helical nucleocapsid. The nucleocapsid acts as a scaffold for virus assembly and as a template for genome transcription and replication. Insights into nucleoprotein-nucleoprotein interactions have been derived from structural studies of oligomerized, RNA-encapsidating nucleoprotein(3-6), and cryo-electron microscopy of nucleocapsid(7-12) or nucleocapsid-like structures(11-13). There have been no high-resolution reconstructions of complete mononegavirus nucleocapsids. Here we apply cryo-electron tomography and subtomogram averaging to determine the structure of Ebola virus nucleocapsid within intact viruses and recombinant nucleocapsid-like assemblies. These structures reveal the identity and arrangement of the nucleocapsid components, and suggest that the formation of an extended a-helix from the disordered carboxy-terminal region of nucleoprotein-core links nucleoprotein oligomerization, nucleocapsid condensation, RNA encapsidation, and accessory protein recruitment.