TY  - JOUR
AU  - Vliegenthart, G. A.
AU  - Gompper, G.
TI  - Mechanical Deformation of Spherical Viruses with Icosahedral Symmetry
JO  - Biophysical journal
VL  - 91
SN  - 0006-3495
CY  - New York, NY
PB  - Rockefeller Univ. Press
M1  - PreJuSER-52397
SP  - 834 - 841
PY  - 2006
N1  - Record converted from VDB: 12.11.2012
AB  - Virus capsids and crystalline surfactant vesicles are two examples of self-assembled shells in the nano- to micrometer size range. Virus capsids are particularly interesting since they have to sustain large internal pressures while encapsulating and protecting the viral DNA. We therefore study the mechanical properties of crystalline shells of icosahedral symmetry on a substrate under a uniaxial applied force by computer simulations. We predict the elastic response for small deformations, and the buckling transitions at large deformations. Both are found to depend strongly on the number of elementary building blocks N (the capsomers in the case of viral shells), the Föppl-von Kármán number gamma (which characterizes the relative importance of shear and bending elasticity), and the confining geometry. In particular, we show that whereas large shells are well described by continuum elasticity-theory, small shells of the size of typical viral capsids behave differently already for small deformations. Our results are essential to extract quantitative information about the elastic properties of viruses and vesicles from deformation experiments.
KW  - Biophysics: methods
KW  - Capsid: chemistry
KW  - Capsid Proteins
KW  - Computer Simulation
KW  - Elasticity
KW  - Kinetics
KW  - Models, Statistical
KW  - Virus Assembly
KW  - Virus Physiological Phenomena
KW  - Viruses: chemistry
KW  - Capsid Proteins (NLM Chemicals)
KW  - J (WoSType)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:16679375
C2  - pmc:PMC1563762
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000239086800008
DO  - DOI:10.1529/biophysj.106.081422
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/52397
ER  -