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The Satellite Tobacco Mosaic Virus or Tobacco mosaic satellivirus was first reported in Nicotiana glauca from southern California, U.S.A. by Valverde and Dodds. Its genome consists of linear single-stranded RNA. (1986)^[1]

"Satellite Tobacco Mosaic Virus is a small, icosahedral plant virus which worsens the symptoms of infection by Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV). Satellite viruses are some of the smallest possible reproducing units in nature; they achieve this by relying on both the host cell and a host virus (in this case, TMV) for the machinery necessary for them to reproduce. The entire STMV particle consists of 60 identical copies of a single protein that make up the viral capsid (coating), and a 1063-nucleotide single-stranded RNA genome which codes for the capsid and one other protein of unknown function." ^[2]

"Klaus Schulten at the University of Illinois, Urbana, and his colleagues built a computer model of the satellite tobacco mosaic virus, a tiny spherical package of RNA. [...] Running on a machine at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, the program calculated how each of the million or so atoms in the virus and a surrounding drop of salt water was interacting with almost every other atom every femtosecond, or millionth of a billionth of a second. [...] The fleeting simulation, published in this month's Structure, reveals that although the virus looks symmetrical it pulses in and out asymmetrically, as if it were breathing." ^[3]

1. ^ Plant Viruses Online
2. ^ Molecular Dynamics of STMV Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology // National Institutes of Health // National Science Foundation // Physics, Computer Science, and Biophysics at the University of Illinois
3. ^ Supercomputer builds a virus at Nature magazine