Virus Structure: From Crick and Watson to a New Conjecture

Details Virus Structure: From Crick and Watson to a New Conjecture Virus Structure: From Crick and Watson to a New Conjecture

2007-07-25

arxiv.org/abs/0707.3690v1

Biology

Quantitative Biology

Quantitative Methods

12 pages, 5 eps figures. Invited talk by A.I. at the Fourth International Summer School and Workshop on Nuclear Physics Method

Scientific paper

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 crystals formed by self-assembled polystyrene beads (an instance of the generalized Thomson problem), could be relevant to extend the classic Caspar and Klug construction for icosahedrally-shaped virus capsids. The main idea is that scars could be produced at an intermediate stage of the assembly of the virus capsids and the release of the bending energy present in scars into stretching energy could allow for a variety of non-spherical capsids' shapes. The conjecture can be tested in experiments on the assembly of artificial protein-cages where these scars should appear.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Virus Structure: From Crick and Watson to a New Conjecture does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Virus Structure: From Crick and Watson to a New Conjecture, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Virus Structure: From Crick and Watson to a New Conjecture will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-546826