We summarize some aspects of electrostatic interactions in the context of viruses. A simplified but, within well defined limitations, reliable approach is used to derive expressions for electrostatic energies and the corresponding osmotic pressures in single-stranded RNA viruses and double-stranded DNA bacteriophages. The two types of viruses differ crucially in the spatialdistribution of their genome charge which leads to essential differences in their free energies, depending on the capsid size and total charge in a quite different fashion. Differences in the free energies are trailed by the corresponding characteristics and variations in the osmotic pressure between the inside of the virus and the external bathing solution.
COBISS.SI-ID: 25607463
We present a novel, three-dimensional, multiscale algorithm for simulations of water flow past a fullerene. We employ the Schwarz alternating overlapping domain method to couple Molecular Dynamics (MD) of liquid water around the C540 buckyball with a Lattice-Boltzmann (LB) description for the Navier-Stokes equations. The proposed method links the MD and LB domains using a fully three-dimensional interface and coupling of velocity gradients. The present overlapping domain method implicitly preserves the flux of mass and momentum and bridges flux-based and Schwarz domain decomposition algorithms. We use this method to determine the slip length and hydrodynamic radius for water flow past a buckyball.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4876826
We investigate and quantify salient features of the charge distributions on viral capsids. Our analysis combines the experimentally determined capsid geometry with simple models for ionization of amino acids, thus yielding a detailed description of spatial distribution for positive and negative charges across the capsid wall. The obtained data is processed in order to extract the mean radii of distributions, surface charge densities, as well as dipole moment densities. The results are evaluated and examined in light of previously proposed models of capsid charge distributions, which are shown to have to some extent limited value when applied to real viruses.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2461028