Structural puzzles in virology solved with an overarching icosahedral design principle

Area of Science:

• Structural biology
• Virology
• Biophysics

Background:

• Viruses utilize icosahedral protein shells to encapsulate genetic material.
• Existing theories like quasi-equivalence struggle to explain all observed viral architectures.
• Advancements in imaging reveal increasing numbers of viral outliers, necessitating new predictive models.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a unifying design principle for viral capsid architectures.
• To investigate the geometric constraints governing virus container designs.
• To explore implications for viral evolution and synthetic nanotechnology.

Main Methods:

• Formulation of a new design principle based on Archimedean lattices and their duals.
• Analysis of geometric constraints in icosahedral and octahedral structures.
• Comparison with existing quasi-equivalence theory and experimental data.

Main Results:

• The proposed principle encompasses quasi-equivalence as a special case.
• It explains capsid blueprints with identical or combined major/minor proteins.
• The principle applies to diverse viral lineages and other natural icosahedral structures.

Conclusions:

• A broader design principle, based on Archimedean lattices, governs viral capsid formation.
• This principle provides a more comprehensive framework for understanding viral evolution.
• The findings offer novel blueprints for bionanotechnology and synthetic materials.