Dresden 2009 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 17: Poster II
BP 17.26: Poster
Mittwoch, 25. März 2009, 17:15–19:45, P3
Mechanical properties of non-enveloped viruses — •Bodo D Wilts1, José L Carrascosa2, Charles M Knobler3, Iwan A T Schaap1, and Christoph F Schmidt1 — 13. Physikalisches Institut, Fakultät für Physik, Georg-August-Universität, 37077 Göttingen, Germany — 2Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, CSIC, Campus de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain — 3Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Non-enveloped viruses protect their genome with a closed protein shell that forms a small and rigid nano-container. The simplest viruses self-assemble in an iscosahedral symmetry that can consist of as few as 60 identical protein subunits.
We have used atomic force microscopy to image, and to probe the mechanical properties of two different viruses by indentation experiments:
i) CCMV (Bromoviridae), a 28 nm diameter plant-infecting virus which has the special ability to change it size under certain conditions. CCMV self-assembles around anionic polymers (such as DNA) and is therefore interesting for nano-technological applications. We have set out to test the variability of the viral mechanics under different buffer conditions.
ii) φ29 (Podoviridae), an elongated 42*52 nm bacteriophage with a tail that is used for insertion of the viral DNA into the host bacterium.
Furthermore, we have modeled the measured elastic response of the viruses by finite element methods to compare it with the empirical data.