Quasistatic packaging of linear and star-shaped polyelectrolytes into viral capsids with the contrast variation method
Viruses are ubiquitous pathogens that possess a relatively simple structure comprising at least genomic nucleic acids packaged into a protein shell called capsid. Genome packaging is still an elusive process in all known viruses and it is for example remarkable that viruses manage to select specifically their genome during their assembly within the highly crowded intracellular environment. In this framework, synthetic homopolyelectrolytes are very helpful to biophysicists to understand and to model the packaging mechanisms by ruling out the specificity arising from the primary and secondary structures of viral RNA. In the present proposal, we aim at elucidating the packaging pathway in quasistatic conditions by probing separately the scattering intensities of a polyelectrolyte being packaged and those of the subunits building up the shell, using the contrast variation method. Such innovative measurements will allow us to relate the conformation of the polyelectrolyte with the advancement state of the capsid, which cannot be achieved otherwise than by small-angle neutron scattering with contrast variation.
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TRESSET Guillaume; PORCAR Lionel and ZEGHAL Mehdi. (2021). Quasistatic packaging of linear and star-shaped polyelectrolytes into viral capsids with the contrast variation method. Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) doi:10.5291/ILL-DATA.9-13-975
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