Dresden 2009 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 23: Physics of Bacteria and Viruses

BP 23.4: Talk

Thursday, March 26, 2009, 18:00–18:15, ZEU 260

In-vitro assembly of Polyoma VP1 — •Henning Seidel — Institute of Physics, Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23538 Lübeck, Germany

One essential element of a virus is its protein shell, the viral capsid, which encloses the viral genome. The murine Polyomavirus is a non-enveloped DNA tumor virus with an icosahedral T=7d structure. Besides the knowledge of the structure, it is of utter importance to understand the process of viral assembly. The assembly reaction of Polyoma VP1 does not show the typical sigmoidal kinetics in light scattering experiments. The apparent kinetics is of fourth order, which appears rather unrealistic. In order to gain knowledge of the capsid composition during assembly beyond ensemble average, we apply methods of single molecule fluorescence, namely fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), fluorescence-intensity-distribution-analysis (FIDA), and single-particle-imaging (SPI).

These will help to answer the main questions: Is there an initial phase to form a nucleus? Exist pronounced intermediates along the assembly pathway? After building the capsid, is there an exchange of pentameres between capsid (Breathing)?