Orientational phase transitions and the assembly of viral capsids

We present a Landau theory for large-l orientational phase transitions and apply it to the assembly of icosahedral viral capsids. The theory predicts two distinct types of ordering transitions. Transitions dominated by the l=6,10,12, and 18 icosahedral spherical harmonics resemble robust first-order...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. E 2017-06, Vol.95 (6-1), p.062402-062402, Article 062402
Main Authors: Dharmavaram, Sanjay, Xie, Fangming, Klug, William, Rudnick, Joseph, Bruinsma, Robijn
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:We present a Landau theory for large-l orientational phase transitions and apply it to the assembly of icosahedral viral capsids. The theory predicts two distinct types of ordering transitions. Transitions dominated by the l=6,10,12, and 18 icosahedral spherical harmonics resemble robust first-order phase transitions that are not significantly affected by chirality. The remaining transitions depend essentially on including mixed l states denoted as l=15+16 corresponding to a mixture of l=15 and l=16 spherical harmonics. The l=15+16 transition is either continuous or weakly first-order and it is strongly influenced by chirality, which suppresses spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. The icosahedral state is in close competition with states that have tetrahedral, D_{5}, and octahedral symmetries. We present a group-theoretic method to analyze the competition between the different symmetries. The theory is applied to a variety of viral shells.
ISSN:2470-0045
2470-0053
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevE.95.062402