Figure 3 –

Increases in solute concentration as water is removed from droplets during drying exert increased osmotic pressures on virions. Droplets, virions, and solute molecules are not drawn to scale with respect to each other for visual purposes. A. During the course of droplet drying, water is removed by evaporation and the solute concentration increases. B. Viral capsids are generally permeable to water and salts, but not to other molecules that might be present.^17,19 Thus, during drying, the external solute concentration increases compared to the solute concentration within the virus particle, inducing hyperosmotic stress on the particle isotopically, shown by the white arrows.