Chiral Quasicrystalline Order and Dodecahedral Geometry in Exceptional Families of Viruses

TL;DR

This paper reveals a novel chiral quasicrystalline organization in certain viruses, linking local protein arrangements to dodecahedral geometry and spherical topology, expanding the understanding of virus structure and quasicrystal theory.

Contribution

It introduces a new matter organization in viruses with chiral quasicrystalline order aligned with dodecahedral geometry, extending classical quasicrystal theory.

Findings

Identification of chiral quasicrystalline order in virus protein arrangements

Connection between local quasicrystal order and virus capsid curvature

Generalization of quasicrystal theory to spherical virus structures

Abstract

On the example of exceptional families of viruses we i) show the existence of a completely new type of matter organization in nanoparticles, in which the regions with a chiral pentagonal quasicrystalline order of protein positions are arranged in a structure commensurate with the spherical topology and dodecahedral geometry, ii) generalize the classical theory of quasicrystals (QCs) to explain this organization, and iii) establish the relation between local chiral QC order and nonzero curvature of the dodecahedral capsid faces.