Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, McKnight Brain Institute, Center for Structural Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA.
Crystals of baculovirus-expressed adeno-associated virus serotype 7 capsids diffract X-rays to approximately 3.0 A resolution. The crystals belong to the rhombohedral space group R3, with unit-cell parameters a = 252.4, c = 591.2 A in the hexagonal setting. The diffraction data were processed and reduced to an overall completeness of 79.0% and an R(merge) of 12.0%. There are three viral capsids in the unit cell. The icosahedral threefold axis is coincident with the crystallographic threefold axis, resulting in one third of a capsid (20 monomers) per crystallographic asymmetric unit. The orientation of the viral capsid has been determined by rotation-function searches and is positioned at (0, 0, 0) by packing considerations.