On the Mathematics of Virus Shell Assembly
B. S. Berger, Peter W. Shor · DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) · 1995
A local rule theory is developed which shows that the self-assembly of icosahedral virus shells may depend on only the lower-level interactions of a protein subunit with its neighbors, i.e. local rules, rather than on larger structural building blocks. The local rule theory provides a framework for understanding the assembly of icosahedral viruses. These include both viruses that fall in the quasi-equivalence theory of Caspar and Klug and the polyoma virus structure, which violates quasi-equivalence and has puzzled researchers since it was #rst observed. Local rules are essentially templates for energetically favorable arrangements. The tolerance margins for these rules are investigated through computer simulations. When these tolerance margins are exceeded in a particular way, the result is a #spiraling" malformation that has been observed in nature.