Related papers: Studies of reversible capsid shell growth
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…
We develop a clear theoretical description of radial swelling in virus-like particles which delineates the importance of electrostatic contributions to swelling in absence of any conformational changes. The model couples the elastic…
We use computer simulations to investigate self-assembly in a system of model chaperonin proteins, and in an Ising lattice gas. We discuss the mechanisms responsible for rapid and efficient assembly in these systems, and we use measurements…
Multilevel self-assembly involving small structured groups of nano-particles provides new routes to development of functional materials with a sophisticated architecture. Apart from the inter-particle forces, the geometrical shapes and…
We model shell formation of core-shell noble metal nanoparticles. A recently developed kinetic Monte Carlo approach is utilized to reproduce growth morphologies realized in recent experiments on core-shell nanoparticle synthesis, which…
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…
We explore the use of templated self-assembly to facilitate the formation of complex target structures made from patchy particles. First, we consider the templating of high-symmetry shell structures around a spherical core particle. We find…
The design of complex materials and the formation of specific patterns often arise from the properties of the individual building blocks. In this respect, colloidal systems offer a unique opportunity because nowadays they can be synthesized…
We extend our previously developed general approach (1) to 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…
Motivated by observations of heterogeneous domain structure on the surface of cells, we consider a minimal model to describe the dynamics of phase separation on the surface of a spherical particle. Finite-size effects on the curved particle…
The results of a numerical investigation of fluidized beds of spherical particles in a narrow vertical cylindrical pipe, with particular attention to the spontaneous settling along the wall, are reported. Starting from a steady fluidized…
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…
It has recently been shown that identical, isotropic particles can form complex crystals and quasicrystals. In order to understand the relation between the particle interaction and the structure, which it stabilizes, the phase behavior of a…
The folding of a polypeptide is an example of the cooperative effects of the amino-acid residues. Of recent interest is how a secondary structure, such as a helix, spontaneously forms during the collapse of a peptide from an initial…
Colloidal particles can self-assemble into various ordered structures in fluid flows that have potential applications in biomedicine, materials synthesis and encryption. These dynamic processes are also of fundamental interest for probing…
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…
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…
We systematically explore the self-assembly of semi-flexible polymers in deformable spherical confinement across a wide regime of chain stiffness, contour lengths and packing fractions by means of coarse-grained molecular dynamics…
Viruses are known to tolerate wide ranges of pH and salt conditions and to withstand internal pressures as high as 100 atmospheres. In this paper we investigate the mechanical properties of viral capsids, calling explicit attention to the…
Bacterial microcompartments are large, roughly icosahedral shells that assemble around enzymes and reactants involved in certain metabolic pathways in bacteria. Motivated by microcompartment assembly, we use coarse-grained computational and…