Abstract

We develop a tractable model for elucidating the assembly pathways by which an icosahedral viral shell forms from 60 identical constituent protein monomers. This poorly understood process a remarkable example of macromolecular self-assembly occuring in nature and possesses many features that are desirable while engineering self-assembly at the nanoscale. The model uses static geometric constraints to represent the driving (weak) forces that cause a viral shell to assemble and hold it together. The goal is to answer focused questions about the structural properties of a successful assembly pathway. Pathways and their

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