Related papers: Assembly Models for Papovaviridae based on Tiling …
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…
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…
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…
In the frame of the Landau-Ginzburg formalism we propose a minimal phenomenological model for a morphological transformation in viral capsid shells. The transformation takes place during virus maturation process which renders virus…
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 (ss) RNA viruses self-assemble spontaneously in solutions that contain the viral RNA genome molecules and viral capsid proteins. The self-assembly of empty capsids can be understood on the basis of free energy minimization.…
We prove a Pumping Lemma for the noncooperative abstract Tile Assembly Model, a model central to the theory of algorithmic self-assembly since the beginning of the field. This theory suggests, and our result proves, that small differences…
The use of reduced models for investigating the self-assembly dynamics underlying protein shell formation in spherical viruses is described. The spontaneous self-assembly of these polyhedral, supramolecular structures, in which icosahedral…
Results from molecular dynamics simulations of simple, structured particles capable of self-assembling into polyhedral shells are described. The analysis focuses on the growth histories of individual shells in the presence of an explicit…
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…
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…
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…
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spurred unprecedented and concerted worldwide research to curtail and eradicate this pathogen. SARS-CoV-2 has four structural proteins:…
During the alphavirus lifecycle, a nucleocapsid core buds through the cell membrane to acquire an outer envelope of lipid membrane and viral glycoproteins. However, the presence of a nucleocapsid core is not required for assembly 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…
Budding from the plasma membrane of the host cell is an indispensable step in the life cycle of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which belongs to a large family of enveloped RNA viruses, retroviruses. Unlike regular enveloped…
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…
Compartmental models are valuable tools for investigating infectious diseases. Researchers building such models typically begin with a simple structure where compartments correspond to individuals with different epidemiological statuses,…
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…
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…