2025-09-24 カリフォルニア大学リバーサイド校(UCR)
<関連情報>
- https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2025/09/24/how-viruses-build-perfectly-symmetrical-protective-shells
- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ady7241
無秩序から正二十面体対称へ:コンフォメーションスイッチングサブユニットがRNAウイルスの組み立てを可能にする仕組み From disorder to icosahedral symmetry: How conformation-switching subunits enable RNA virus assembly
Siyu Li, Guillaume Tresset, and Roya Zandi
Science Advances Published:24 Sep 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ady7241
Abstract
Icosahedral capsids are ubiquitous among spherical viruses, yet their assembly pathways and governing interactions remain elusive. We present a molecular dynamics model that incorporates essential physical and biological features, including protein diffusion, genome flexibility, and a conformational switch that mimics allostery and activates the elastic properties of proteins upon binding. This switch makes the simulations computationally feasible, overcoming long-standing limitations of previous models. Using this framework, we successfully reproduce the self-assembly of subunits into icosahedral shells with T numbers greater than one—most notably T = 3, the most common structure in nature—a feat rigid-body models have so far failed to achieve. We also examine how genome architecture influences assembly and observe trends consistent with experiments using cowpea chlorotic mottle virus proteins: RNAs with more complex structure yield more complete capsids than do linear ones. These results establish a predictive framework for genome-guided assembly and offer insight into designing synthetic capsids for biomedical applications.
