Minimal Design Principles for Icosahedral Virus Capsids.

Area of Science:

• Structural biology
• Biophysics
• Computational modeling

Background:

• Virus capsids exhibit diverse geometrical structures, primarily icosahedral.
• Understanding the design principles governing capsid formation is crucial for virology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop simple design functions that accurately reproduce icosahedral virus capsid structures.
• To analyze the complexity and information content of these structures and their corresponding design functions.

Main Methods:

• Representing capsid subunits as point particles on concentric spherical surfaces.
• Utilizing cost functions inspired by Thomson problem packings to minimize design cost.
• Incorporating icosahedral symmetry constraints and analyzing information content.

Main Results:

• Simple cost functions can effectively reproduce known icosahedral virus capsid geometries.
• Optimal spherical packings of particles correspond to minimal design cost.
• Icosahedral structures and their design functions exhibit the lowest complexity and information content.

Conclusions:

• Icosahedral symmetry provides a fundamental and simple design principle for virus capsids.
• The developed cost functions offer a powerful tool for understanding and predicting capsid structures.
• Nature favors simple, information-rich solutions for constructing complex biological architectures.