Related papers: An irreversible growth model for virus capsid asse…
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…
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…
We 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 those of prolate virus capsid structures. Our simulation…
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) capsid proteins spontaneously assemble around the genome into a protective protein shell called the capsid, which can take on a variety of shapes broadly classified as conical, cylindrical and irregular.…
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…
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…
Single-stranded (ss) RNA viruses self-assemble spontaneously in solutions that contain the viral RNA genome molecules and the viral capsid proteins. The self-assembly of empty capsids can be understood on the basis of free energy…
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…
We conjecture that certain patterns (scars), theoretically and numerically predicted to be formed by electrons arranged on a sphere to minimize the repulsive Coulomb potential (the Thomson problem) and experimentally found in spherical…
Large protein assemblies, such as virus capsids, may be coarse-grained as a set of rigid domains linked by generalized (rotational and stretching) harmonic springs. We present a method to obtain the elastic parameters and overdamped…
Morphologic diversity is observed across all families of viruses. Yet these supra-molecular assemblies are produced most of the time in a spontaneous way through complex molecular self-assembly scenarios. The modeling of these phenomena…
We apply Landau theory of crystallization to explain and to classify the capsid structures of small viruses with spherical topology and icosahedral symmetry. We develop an explicit method which predicts the positions of centers of mass for…
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…
The distribution of inequivalent geometries occurring during self-assembly of the major capsid protein in thermodynamic equilibrium is determined based on a master equation approach. These results are implemented to characterize the…
Budding allows virus replication and macromolecular secretion in cells. It involves the formation of a bud, i.e. an outgrowth from the cell membrane that evolves into an envelope. The largest energetic barrier to bud formation is membrane…
Solid tumours have the ability to assemble their own vascular network for optimizing their access to the vital nutrients. These new capillaries are morphologically different from normal physiological vessels. In particular, they have a much…
The self-assembly of particles into organized structures is a key feature of living organisms and a major engineering challenge. While it may proceed through the binding of perfectly matched, puzzle-pieces-like particles, many other…
The kinetics of the self-assembly of nanocomponents into a virus, nanocapsule, or other composite structure is analyzed via a multiscale approach. The objective is to achieve predictability and to preserve key atomic-scale features that…
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.…
We propose a description for the quasi-equilibrium self-assembly of small, single-stranded (ss) RNA viruses whose capsid proteins (CPs) have flexible, positively charged, disordered tails that associate with the negatively charged RNA…