Related papers: Mechanisms of Size Control and Polymorphism in Vir…
Biomolecular condensates are liquid- or gel-like droplets of proteins and nucleic acids formed at least in part through liquid-liquid phase separation. Condensates enable diverse functions of cells and the pathogens that infect them,…
Cyanobacteria sequester photosynthetic enzymes into microcompartments which facilitate the conversion of carbon dioxide into sugars. Geometric similarities between these structures and self-assembling viral capsids have inspired models that…
Many viruses rely on the self-assembly of their capsids to protect and transport their genomic material. For many viral systems, in particular for human viruses like hepatitis B, adeno or human immunodeficiency virus, that lead to…
In this work we study how a viral capsid can change conformation using techniques of Large Deviations Theory for stochastic differential equations. The viral capsid is a model of a complex system in which many units - the proteins forming…
We use computer simulations to study a model, first proposed by Wales [1], for the reversible and monodisperse self-assembly of simple icosahedral virus capsid structures. The success and efficiency of assembly as a function of…
Viruses are biological nanosystems with a capsid of protein-made capsomer units that encloses and protects the genetic material responsible for their replication. Here we show how the geometrical constraints of the capsomer-capsomer…
While small single stranded viral shells encapsidate their genome spontaneously, many large viruses, such as the Herpes virus or Infectious Bursal Disease Virus (IBDV), typically require a template, consisting of either scaffolding proteins…
During the lifecycle of a virus, viral proteins and other components self-assemble to form a symmetric protein shell called a capsid. This assembly process is subject to multiple competing constraints, including the need to form a…
Physical properties of capsids of plant and animal viruses are important factors in capsid self-assembly, survival of viruses in the extracellular environment, and their cell infectivity. Virus shells can have applications as nanocontainers…
Previous self-assembly experiments on a model icosahedral plant virus have shown that, under physiological conditions, capsid proteins initially bind to the genome through an en masse mechanism and form nucleoprotein complexes in a…
Single-stranded RNA viruses co-assemble their capsid with the genome and variations in capsid structures can have significant functional relevance. In particular, viruses need to respond to a dehydrating environment to prevent genomic…
The self-assembly of polyhedral shells, each constructed from 60 trapezoidal particles, is simulated using molecular dynamics. The spatial organization of the component particles in this shell is similar to the capsomer proteins forming the…
Virus binding to a surface results at least locally, at the contact area, in stress and potential structural perturbation of the virus cage. Here we address the question of the role of substrate-induced deformation in the overall virus…
Cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) is a widely used model for virus replication studies. A major challenge lies in distinguishing between the roles of the interaction between coat proteins and that between the coat proteins and the viral…
A molecular-level model is used to study the mechanical response of empty cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) and cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV) capsids. The model is based on the native structure of the proteins that consitute the capsids and…
We model the spontaneous assembly of a capsid (a virus's closed outer shell) from many copies of identical units, using entirely irreversible steps and only information local to the growing edge. Our model is formulated in terms of (i) an…
Polymorphism has been observed in viral capsid assembly, demonstrating the ability of identical protein dimers to adopt multiple geometries under the same solution conditions. A well-studied example is the hepatitis B virus (HBV), which…
Recent studies reveal that certain viruses package a portion of their genome in a manner that mirrors the icosahedral symmetry of the protein container, or capsid. Graph theoretical constraints forbid exact realization of icosahedral…
Understanding how virus capsids assemble around their nucleic acid (NA) genomes could promote efforts to block viral propagation or to reengineer capsids for gene therapy applications. We develop a coarse-grained model of capsid proteins…
A coarse-grained computational model is used to investigate the effect of a fluctuating fluid membrane on the dynamics of patchy-particle assembly into virus capsid-like cores. Results from simulations for a broad range of parameters are…