Exploring the interplay between virology and molecular crystallography

DOI10.1080/17486700802166993MaRDI QIDQ1001533zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors A. Janner

Publication date 18 February 2009

Published in Computational \& Mathematical Methods in Medicine (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://eudml.org/doc/229296

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistical mechanics of crystals (82D25) Biochemistry, molecular biology (92C40) Medical applications (general) (92C50)

Review text

Summary: Polyhedra with icosahedral symmetry and vertices labelled by rational indices of points of a six-dimensional lattice left invariant by the icosahedral group allow a morphological characterization of icosahedral viruses which includes the Caspar-Klug classification as a special case. Scaling transformations relating the indexed polyhedron enclosing the surface with the one delimiting the central cavity lead to models of viral capsids observed in nature. Similar scaling relations can be obtained from projected images in three dimensions of higher-dimensional crystallographic point groups having the icosahedral group as a subgroup. This crystallographic approach can be extended to axial-symmetric clusters of coat proteins around icosahedral axes of the capsid. One then gets enclosing forms with vertices at points of lattices left invariant by the corresponding point group and having additional crystallographic properties also observed in natural crystals, but not explained by the known crystallographic laws.

Recommendations

• Towards a classification of icosahedral viruses in terms of indexed polyhedra
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• Affine extensions of the icosahedral group with applications to the three-dimensional organisation of simple viruses
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Cited in

(4)

• Irregular and semi-regular polyhedral models for Rous sarcoma virus cores
• A crystallographic approach to structural transitions in icosahedral viruses
• Towards a classification of icosahedral viruses in terms of indexed polyhedra
• Affine extensions of the icosahedral group with applications to the three-dimensional organisation of simple viruses

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