The Structure of Elongated Viral Capsids
The Structure of Elongated Viral Capsids
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DOI：
10.1016/j.bpj.2010.02.051
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发表时间：
2010-06-16
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
Reguera, David
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Luque, Antoni;Reguera, David
有许多病毒的遗传物质受到一个封闭的拉长蛋白质壳的保护。与球形病毒不同，这些细长衣壳的结构和构造原理并不完全清楚。在这篇文章中，我们发展了一个通用的几何模型来描述扁平或杆状衣壳的结构。我们证明，只有有限的管状结构可以被半球形二十面体封顶所封闭。特别是，蛋白质的长度和数量采用一组非常特殊的离散值，由轴对称(五倍、三倍或两倍)和帽子的三角数量决定。这一结果得到了实验观测和简化物理模型模拟的支持。这项工作带来了细长病毒的一般分类，这将有助于预测它们的结构，并为生物医学和纳米技术应用设计具有定制几何属性的病毒笼子。
There are many viruses whose genetic material is protected by a closed elongated protein shell. Unlike spherical viruses, the structure and construction principles of these elongated capsids are not fully known. In this article, we have developed a general geometrical model to describe the structure of prolate or bacilliform capsids. We show that only a limited set of tubular architectures can be built closed by hemispherical icosahedral caps. In particular, the length and number of proteins adopt a very special set of discrete values dictated by the axial symmetry (fivefold, threefold, or twofold) and the triangulation number of the caps. The results are supported by experimental observations and simulations of simplified physical models. This work brings about a general classification of elongated viruses that will help to predict their structure, and to design viral cages with tailored geometrical properties for biomedical and nanotechnological applications.