论文标题
病毒涂层蛋白的电荷分布对包装RNA长度的影响
Effect of the charge distribution of virus coat proteins on the length of packaged RNAs
论文作者
论文摘要
单链RNA病毒有效地将其基因组封装到称为Capsid的蛋白质壳中。 Capsid蛋白N末端尾巴中的正电荷与带负电荷的基因组之间的静电相互作用已被假定是病毒组装的主要驱动力。最近的实验结果表明，具有相同数量的电荷和相同长度的N末端包装不同量的RNA，这表明单独静电无法解释RNA自组装实验的所有观察到的结果。使用平均场理论，我们表明基因组构型熵和静电的综合作用可以在某种程度上解释带有突变蛋白的包装RNA的量，其中尾巴上的位置和电荷的位置和数量发生了变化。了解导致病毒组装的因素可以促进试图阻止病毒感染或建立基因治疗应用的衣壳。
Single-stranded RNA viruses efficiently encapsulate their genome into a protein shell called the capsid. Electrostatic interactions between the positive charges in the capsid protein's N-terminal tail and the negatively charged genome have been postulated as the main driving force for virus assembly. Recent experimental results indicate that the N-terminal tail with the same number of charges and same lengths package different amounts of RNA, which reveals that electrostatics alone cannot explain all the observed outcomes of the RNA self-assembly experiments. Using a mean-field theory, we show that the combined effect of genome configurational entropy and electrostatics can explain to some extent the amount of packaged RNA with mutant proteins where the location and number of charges on the tails are altered. Understanding the factors contributing to the virus assembly could promote the attempt to block viral infections or to build capsids for gene therapy applications.
