Electrostatic theory of viral self-assembly

Tao Hu, Rui Zhang and B.I. Shklovskii

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2008, vol. 387, issue 12, 3059-3064

Abstract: Viruses self-assemble from identical capsid proteins and their genome consisting, for example, of a long single stranded (ss) RNA. For a big class of T=3 viruses, capsid proteins have long positive N-terminal tails. We explore the role played by the Coulomb interaction between the brush of positive N-terminal tails rooted at the inner surface of the capsid and the negative ss RNA molecule. We show that viruses are most stable when the total contour length of ss RNA is close to the total length of the tails. For such a structure the absolute value of the total RNA charge is approximately twice as large as the charge of the capsid. This conclusion agrees with structural data.

Keywords: Virus self-assembly; Coulomb interaction; Single stranded RNA; Capsid protein (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:387:y:2008:i:12:p:3059-3064

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2008.01.010

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