Role of reversibility in viral capsid growth: A paradigm for self-assembly

TL;DR

This paper investigates virus capsid self-assembly, revealing that growth occurs through reversible steps and highlighting the significance of reversible interactions in the formation process.

Contribution

It introduces a molecular dynamics simulation approach to study capsid growth, emphasizing the role of reversibility in self-assembly pathways.

Findings

Growth proceeds via reversible steps

Few highly bonded intermediates dominate the pathway

Reversibility influences assembly efficiency

Abstract

Self-assembly at submicroscopic scales is an important but little understood phenomenon. A prominent example is virus capsid growth, whose underlying behavior can be modeled using simple particles that assemble into polyhedral shells. Molecular dynamics simulation of shell formation in the presence of an atomistic solvent provides new insight into the self-assembly mechanism, notably that growth proceeds via a cascade of strongly reversible steps and, despite the large variety of possible intermediates, only a small fraction of highly bonded forms appear on the pathway.