Related papers: Energies and pressures in viruses: contribution of…
Understanding the interactions between viruses and surfaces or interfaces is important, as they provide the principles underpinning the cleaning and disinfection of contaminated surfaces. Yet, the physics of such interactions is currently…
Electrostatic interaction is the driving force for the encapsulation by virus coat proteins of nanoparticles such as quantum dots, gold particles and magnetic beads for, e.g., imaging and therapeutic purposes. In recent experimental work,…
Electrostatic interactions play a central role in the assembly of single-stranded RNA viruses. Under physiological conditions of salinity and acidity, virus capsid assembly requires the presence of genomic material that is oppositely…
A critical step in the bacteriophage life cycle is genome ejection into host bacteria. The ejection process for double-stranded DNA phages has been studied thoroughly \textit{in vitro}, where after triggering with the cellular receptor the…
Many single-stranded (ss) RNA viruses self assemble from capsid protein subunits and the nucleic acid to form an infectious virion. It is believed that the electrostatic interactions between the negatively charged RNA and the positively…
Bacteriophages, phages for short, are viruses of bacteria. The majority of phages contain a double-stranded DNA genome packaged in a capsid at a density of ~500 mg/ml. This high density requires substantial compression of the normal B form…
The electrostatic interaction of metal nanoparticles with viruses is attracting great interest due to their antiviral activity and their role in enhancing the detection of viruses at ultra-low concentrations. We model the MS2 virus devoid…
Single-stranded RNA viruses efficiently encapsulate their genome into a protein shell called the capsid. Electrostatic interactions between the positive charges in the capsid protein's N-terminal tail and the negatively charged genome have…
We propose a theoretical model to elucidate intermolecular electrostatic interactions between a virus and a substrate. Our model treats the virus as a homogeneous particle having surface charge and the polymer fiber of the respirator as a…
We discuss how a balance can be established between the force acting to eject DNA from viral capsids and the force resisting its entry into a colloidal suspension which mimics the host cell cytoplasm. The ejection force arises from the…
Bacteriophages densely pack their long dsDNA genome inside a protein capsid. The conformation of the viral genome inside the capsid is consistent with a hexagonal liquid crystalline structure. Experiments have confirmed that the details of…
The conjunction of insights from structural biology, solution biochemistry, genetics and single molecule biophysics has provided a renewed impetus for the construction of quantitative models of biological processes. One area that has been a…
Several controversial issues concerning the packing of linear DNA in bacteriophages and globules are discussed. Exact relations for the osmotic pressure, capsid pressure and loading force are derived in terms of the hole size inside phages…
The effect of electrostatic interactions on the stretching of DNA is investigated using a simple worm like chain model. In the limit of small force there are large conformational fluctuations which are treated using a self-consistent…
We consider an osmotic equilibrium between bulk solutions of polyelectrolyte bounded by semipermeable membranes and separated by a thin film of salt-free liquid. Although the membranes are neutral, the counter-ions of the polyelectrolyte…
Recently, Maassen et al. measured an appreciable pH difference between the bulk solution and the solution in the lumen of virus-like particles, self-assembled in an aqueous buffer solution containing the coat proteins of a simple plant…
Simple RNA viruses efficiently encapsulate their genome into a nano-sized protein shell: the capsid. Spontaneous co-assembly of the genome and the capsid proteins is driven predominantly by electrostatic interactions between the negatively…
We examine the limits on viral composition that are set by the electrostatic interactions effected by the charge on the viral proteins, the single-stranded viral RNA molecule and monovalent salt ions in the solution. Within the mean-field…
The ejection of DNA from a bacterial virus (``phage'') into its host cell is a biologically important example of the translocation of a macromolecular chain along its length through a membrane. The simplest mechanism for this motion is…
Nucleosomes form the basic unit of compaction within eukaryotic genomes and their locations represent an important, yet poorly understood, mechanism of genetic regulation. Quantifying the strength of interactions within the nucleosome is a…