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Archive for the ‘Icosahedron’ tag

Virus capsids are pretty

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Brief: The majority of virus protein coats (capsids) are in the shape of an icosahedron — a figure with twenty equilateral triangles. The first time I saw this rendered was in a paper by David S. Goodsell. In it, Goodsell describes proteins with structural symmetries. Four viruses are used as examples — they are tobacco necrosis virus (2BUK), tomato bushy stunt virus (2TBV), bluetongue virus (3IYK) and simian virus 40 (1SVA) linked here to their RSCB PDB entries.

Pretty, aren’t they? Very pretty.

If you follow the PDB links, you can take a look at how a single tessellation unit appears, how long a chain is and how massive the capsid is.

Notice: The icosahedron (twenty equilateral triangles) must not be confused with the dodecahedron (twenty points).

Eddie Ma

September 27th, 2010 at 1:00 pm