1. Measurements of the self-assembly kinetics of individual viral capsids around their RNA genome.
- Author
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Garmann RF, Goldfain AM, and Manoharan VN
- Subjects
- Capsid chemistry, Capsid Proteins chemistry, Capsid Proteins genetics, Capsid Proteins metabolism, Genome, Viral, Kinetics, Levivirus chemistry, Levivirus genetics, Levivirus growth & development, RNA Viruses chemistry, RNA Viruses genetics, RNA Viruses growth & development, RNA, Viral chemistry, RNA, Viral metabolism, Virion chemistry, Virion genetics, Capsid metabolism, Levivirus physiology, RNA Viruses physiology, RNA, Viral genetics, Virion physiology, Virus Assembly
- Abstract
Self-assembly is widely used by biological systems to build functional nanostructures, such as the protein capsids of RNA viruses. But because assembly is a collective phenomenon involving many weakly interacting subunits and a broad range of timescales, measurements of the assembly pathways have been elusive. We use interferometric scattering microscopy to measure the assembly kinetics of individual MS2 bacteriophage capsids around MS2 RNA. By recording how many coat proteins bind to each of many individual RNA strands, we find that assembly proceeds by nucleation followed by monotonic growth. Our measurements reveal the assembly pathways in quantitative detail and also show their failure modes. We use these results to critically examine models of the assembly process., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest., (Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)
- Published
- 2019
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