The twenty-four near-instabilities of Caspar-Klug viruses

TL;DR

This paper reveals a universal structure of 24 near-zero vibrational modes in icosahedral viral capsids, identified through group theory and normal mode analysis, highlighting their near-instability features.

Contribution

It introduces a novel group-theoretical approach combined with normal mode analysis to identify a universal set of near-zero modes in viral capsids.

Findings

Discovery of a plateau of 24 near-zero modes in the vibrational spectrum.

Universal group theory content of these near-zero modes.

Implications for understanding viral capsid stability and flexibility.

Abstract

Group theoretical arguments combined with normal mode analysis techniques are applied to a coarse-grained approximation of icosahedral viral capsids which incorporates areas of variable flexibility. This highlights a remarkable structure of the low-frequency spectrum in this approximation, namely the existence of a plateau of 24 near zero-modes with universal group theory content.