Simulation studies of a phenomenological model for elongated virus capsid formation
Abstract
We study a phenomenological model in which the simulated packing of hard, attractive spheres on a prolate spheroid surface with convexity constraints produces structures identical to those of prolate virus capsid structures. Our simulation approach combines the traditional Monte Carlo method with a modified method of random sampling on an ellipsoidal surface and a convex hull searching algorithm. Using this approach we identify the minimum physical requirements for non-icosahedral, elongated virus capsids, such as two aberrant flock house virus (FHV) particles and the prolate prohead of bacteriophage , and discuss the implication of our simulation results in the context of recent experimental findings. Our predicted structures may also be experimentally realized by evaporation-driven assembly of colloidal spheres.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0701125,
title = {Simulation studies of a phenomenological model for elongated virus capsid formation},
author = {Ting Chen and Sharon C. Glotzer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0701125},
year = {2009}
}