dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaBuckling transition in icosahedral shells subjected to volume conservation constraint and pressure: relations to virus maturation
| Authors | Antonio Siber |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0602020 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0602020 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevE.73.061915 |
| Journal | Phys. Rev. E 73, 061915 (2006) |
Abstract
Minimal energy shapes of closed, elastic shells with twelve pentagonal disclinations introduced in otherwise hexagonally coordinated crystalline lattice are studied. The geometry and the total energy of shells are studied as a function of the elastic properties of the material they are made of. Particular emphasis is put on the buckling transition of the shells, that is a strong preference of the shell shapes to 'buckle out' in spatial regions close to the pentagonal disclinations for certain range of the elastic parameters of the problem. The transition effectively increases the mean square aspherity of shapes, making them look more like an icosahedron, rather than a sphere which is a preferred shape prior to the onset of the transition. The properties of the buckling transition are studied in cases when (i) the total volume enclosed by the elastic shell has to be fixed and when (ii) there is an internal pressure acting on the shell. This may be related to maturation process in non-enveloped dsDNA viruses, where the insertion of the genetic material in a pre-formed protein shell (viral coating) may effectively impose the fixed volume and/or pressure constraint. Several scenarios that may explain the experimentally observed feature of mature viruses being more aspherical (facetted) from their immature precursors are discussed and new predictions for the elastic properties of viral coatings are obtained on the basis of the presented studies.
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"abstract": "Minimal energy shapes of closed, elastic shells with twelve pentagonal\ndisclinations introduced in otherwise hexagonally coordinated crystalline\nlattice are studied. The geometry and the total energy of shells are studied as\na function of the elastic properties of the material they are made of.\nParticular emphasis is put on the buckling transition of the shells, that is a\nstrong preference of the shell shapes to \u0027buckle out\u0027 in spatial regions close\nto the pentagonal disclinations for certain range of the elastic parameters of\nthe problem. The transition effectively increases the mean square aspherity of\nshapes, making them look more like an icosahedron, rather than a sphere which\nis a preferred shape prior to the onset of the transition. The properties of\nthe buckling transition are studied in cases when (i) the total volume enclosed\nby the elastic shell has to be fixed and when (ii) there is an internal\npressure acting on the shell. This may be related to maturation process in\nnon-enveloped dsDNA viruses, where the insertion of the genetic material in a\npre-formed protein shell (viral coating) may effectively impose the fixed\nvolume and/or pressure constraint. Several scenarios that may explain the\nexperimentally observed feature of mature viruses being more aspherical\n(facetted) from their immature precursors are discussed and new predictions for\nthe elastic properties of viral coatings are obtained on the basis of the\npresented studies.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0602020",
"authors": [
"Antonio Siber"
],
"categories": [
"physics.bio-ph",
"physics.comp-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1103/PhysRevE.73.061915",
"journal_ref": "Phys. Rev. E 73, 061915 (2006)",
"title": "Buckling transition in icosahedral shells subjected to volume conservation constraint and pressure: relations to virus maturation",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0602020"
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