Generating Vectors for the Lattice Structures of Tubular and Conical Viral Capsids

Retrovirus capsid is a fullerene-like lattice consisting of capsid protein hexamers and pentamers. Mathematical models for the lattice structure help understand the underlying biological mechanisms in the formation of viral capsids. It is known that viral capsids could be categorized into three majo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inComputational and Mathematical Biophysics Vol. 2; no. 1; pp. 128 - 140
Main Authors Sadre-Marandi, Farrah, Liu, Jiangguo, Tavener, Simon, Chen, Chaoping
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published De Gruyter Open 01.01.2014
Sciendo
De Gruyter
Subjects
92C05
CA protein
capsid
cone
hexamer
HIV-1
icosahedron
pentamer
tube
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Summary:Retrovirus capsid is a fullerene-like lattice consisting of capsid protein hexamers and pentamers. Mathematical models for the lattice structure help understand the underlying biological mechanisms in the formation of viral capsids. It is known that viral capsids could be categorized into three major types: icosahedron, tube, and cone. While the model for icosahedral capsids is established and well-received, models for tubular and conical capsids need further investigation. This paper proposes new models for the tubular and conical capsids based on an extension of the Capser-Klug quasi-equivalence theory. In particular, two and three generating vectors are used to characterize respectively the lattice structures of tubular and conical capsids. Comparison with published HIV-1 data demonstrates a good agreement of our modeling results with experimental data.
ISSN:2544-7297
2299-3266
2544-7297
DOI:10.2478/mlbmb-2014-0009