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Updated: May 9, 2026

Generation and Assembly of Virus-Specific Nucleocapsids of the Respiratory Syncytial Virus
Published on: July 27, 2021
Strongly correlated electrostatics of viral genome packaging
1Nano and Energy Center, Vietnam National University-Hanoi, 144 Xuan Thuy, Cau Giay Street, Hanoi, Vietnam. toan.nguyen@physics.gatech.edu
Abstract:
The problem of viral packaging (condensation) and ejection from viral capsid in the presence of multivalent counterions is considered. Experiments show divalent counterions strongly influence the amount of DNA ejected from bacteriophage. In this paper, the strong electrostatic interactions between DNA molecules in the presence of multivalent counterions is investigated. It is shown that experiment results agree reasonably well with the phenomenon of DNA reentrant condensation. This phenomenon is known to cause DNA condensation in the presence of tri- or tetra-valent counterions. For divalent counterions, the viral capsid confinement strongly suppresses DNA configurational entropy, therefore the correlation between divalent counterions is strongly enhanced causing similar effect. Computational studies also agree well with theoretical calculations.
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