Related papers: Allosteric control in icosahedral capsid assembly
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…
Colloidal molecules are designed to mimic their molecular analogues through their anisotropic shape and interactions. However, current experimental realizations are missing the structural flexibility present in real molecules thereby…
We develop a class of models with which we simulate the assembly of particles into T1 capsid-like objects using Newtonian dynamics. By simulating assembly for many different values of system parameters, we vary the forces that drive…
We present a generic computational framework for the simulation of viral capsid assembly which is quantitative and specific. Starting from PDB files containing atomic coordinates, the algorithm builds a coarse grained description of protein…
For many viruses assembly and budding occur simultaneously during virion formation. Understanding the mechanisms underlying this process could promote biomedical efforts to block viral propagation and enable use of capsids in nanomaterials…
Studying physical mechanisms and common geometric principles underlying known spherical packings is crucial for rational design of synthetic nanocontainers. Here we model the growth of small spherical shells containing n<72 identical…
From the analysis of sizes of approximately 130 small icosahedral viruses we find that there is a typical structural capsid protein, having a mean diameter of 5 nm and a mean thickness of 3 nm, with more than two thirds of the analyzed…
We develop equilibrium and kinetic theories that describe the assembly of viral capsid proteins on a charged central core, as seen in recent experiments in which brome mosaic virus (BMV) capsids assemble around nanoparticles functionalized…
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 vital constituent of a virus is its protein shell, called the viral capsid, that encapsulates and hence provides protection for the viral genome. Assembly models are developed for viral capsids built from protein building blocks that can…
Understanding the pathways by which viral capsid proteins assemble around their genomes could identify key intermediates as potential drug targets. In this work we use computer simulations to characterize assembly over a wide range of…
A model of growth of icosahedral viral capsids is proposed. It takes into account the diversity of hexamers' compositions, leading to definite capsid size. We show that the observed yield of capsid production implies a very high level of…
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…
The simplest prescription for building a patterned structure from its constituents is to add particles, one at a time, to an appropriate template. However, self-organizing molecular and colloidal systems in nature can evolve in much more…
Cholesteric liquid crystals can exhibit spatial patterns in molecular alignment at interfaces that can be exploited for particle assembly. These patterns emerge from the competition between bulk and surface energies, tunable with the system…
Assembly of protein complexes like virus shells, the centriole, the nuclear pore complex or the actin cytoskeleton is strongly determined by their spatial structure. Moreover it is becoming increasingly clear that the reversible nature of…
Self-assembly of complex and functional materials remains a grand challenge in soft material science. Efficient assembly depends on a delicate balance between thermodynamic and kinetic effects, requiring fine-tuning affinities and…
The kinetics for the assembly of viral proteins into a population of capsids can be measured in vitro with size exclusion chromatography or dynamic light scattering, but extracting mechanistic information from these studies is challenging.…
Complex colloidal cluster morphologies are desirable for the fabrication of advanced materials, such as photonic crystals and meta-materials, and can be formed through evaporation-driven packing. By coupling lattice Boltzmann and discrete…
In allosteric proteins, binding a ligand can affect function at a distant location, for example by changing the binding affinity of a substrate at the active site. The induced fit and population shift models, which differ by the assumed…