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Updated: Jun 28, 2026

Generation and Assembly of Virus-Specific Nucleocapsids of the Respiratory Syncytial Virus
Published on: July 27, 2021
Role of reversibility in viral capsid growth: a paradigm for self-assembly
1Physics Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel. rapaport@mail.biu.ac.il
Abstract:
Self-assembly at submicroscopic scales is an important but little understood phenomenon. A prominent example is virus capsid growth, whose underlying behavior can be modeled using simple particles that assemble into polyhedral shells. Molecular dynamics simulation of shell formation in the presence of an atomistic solvent provides new insight into the self-assembly mechanism, notably that growth proceeds via a cascade of strongly reversible steps and, despite the large variety of possible intermediates, only a small fraction of highly bonded forms appear on the pathway.
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