English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

The morphology of icosahedral viruses ranges from highly spherical to highly faceted, and for some viruses a shape transition occurs during the viral life cycle. This phenomena is predicted from continuum elasticity, via the buckling transition theory by Nelson (Phys. Rev. E 2003, 68, 051910), in which the shape is dependent on the Foppl-von Kármán number (γ), which is a ratio of the two-dimensional Young's modulus (Y) and the bending modulus (κ). However, until now, no direct calculations have been performed on atomic-level capsid structures to test the predictions of the theory. In this study, we employ a previously described multiscale method by May and Brooks (Phys. Rev. Lett. 2011, 106, 188101) to calculate Y and κ for the bacteriophage HK97, which undergoes a spherical to faceted transition during its viral life cycle. We observe a change in γ consistent with the buckling transition theory and also a significant reduction in κ, which facilitates formation of the faceted state. We go on to examine many capsids from the T = 3 and 7 classes using only elastic network models, which allows us to calculate the ratio Y/κ, without the expense of all-atom molecular dynamics. We observe for the T = 7 capsids, there is strong correlation between the shape of the capsid and γ; however, there is no such correlation for the smaller T = 3 viruses.

On the Morphology of Viral Capsids: Elastic Properties and Buckling Transitions