engleski

Are electrostatic and elastic properties of viruses tuned by evolution and how?

Viruses have been studied as electrostatic and elastic entities, yet, not much is really known regarding the possible evolutionary convergence of their electrostatic and elastic properties. Are there physical constraints and reasons for these properties to converge at all? Can we possibly say something regarding the evolutionary relatedness of different viruses on the basis of their physical properties? I will present some results from my studies of elastic [1-3] and electrostatic [4-8] properties of viruses and discuss the constraints that these properties impose on a functional, evolutionary viable virus. [1] A. Šiber, "Buckling transition in icosahedral shells subjected to volume conservation constraint and pressure: Relations to virus maturation", Phys. Rev. E 73, 061915 (2006). [2] A. Šiber and R. Podgornik, "Stability of elastic icosadeltahedral shells under uniform external pressure: Application to viruses under osmotic pressure“, Phys. Rev. E 79, 011919 (2009). [3] A. Lošdorfer Božič, A. Šiber and R. Podgornik, “Statistical analysis of sizes and shapes of virus capsids and their resulting elastic properties”, in press in J. Biol. Phys., DOI 10.1007/s10867-013-9302-3 [4] A. Šiber and R. Podgornik, "Role of electrostatic interactions in the assembly of empty spherical viral capsids", Phys. Rev. E 76, 061906 (2007). [5] A. Šiber and R. Podgornik, "Nonspecific interactions in spontaneous assembly of empty versus functional single-stranded RNA viruses“, Phys. Rev. E 78, 051915 (2008). [6] A. Šiber and A. Majdandžić, "Spontaneous curvature as a regulator of the size of virus capsids“, Phys. Rev. E 80, 021910 (2009). [7] A. Lošdorfer Božič, A. Šiber, and R. Podgornik, "How simple can a model of an empty viral capsid be? Charge distributions in viral capsids“, J. Biol. Phys. 38, 657 (2012). [8] A. Šiber, A. Lošdorfer Božič, and R. Podgornik, "Energies and pressures in viruses: contribution of nonspecific electrostatic interactions“, Phys.Chem.Chem.Phys. 14, 3746 (2012).

electrostatics; elasticity; virus; evolution

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