Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar

Many viruses protect their genetic material with a closed elongated protein shell. Unlike spherical viruses, the structure of these prolates is not yet well understood, and only a few of them have been fully characterized. I will present the results of a simple phenomenological model, which reproduces the architecture of spherical and bacilliform viruses, both in vivo and in vitro, as a consequence of free-energy minimization of a generic interaction between the structural units of the capsid. Most of these viral shells can be understood as an extension of the classical Caspar and Klug classification, and I will show the geometrical model that dictates their well defined properties. This work constitutes a step toward understanding viral self-assembly and brings about a general classification of spherical and elongated viruses, which will help to predict their structure, and to guide biomedical and nanotechnological applications.