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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Apr 4.
Published in final edited form as: Adv Chem Phys. 2014 Apr 4;155:1–68. doi: 10.1002/9781118755815.ch01

Fig. 22.

Fig. 22

Two mechanisms for assembly around a polymer [76]. (A) Strong subunit-subunit interactions and relatively weak subunit-polymer interactions led to a nucleation and growth mechanism, where first a small partial capsid formed on the polymer followed by sequential addition of subunits. (B) Weaker subunit-subunit interactions and stronger subunit-polymer interactions led to a disordered assembly mechanism, where more than 20 subunits (the size of a complete capsid) bound to the polymer in a disordered arrangement, followed by annealing of multiple intermediates and finally completion. Figure reprinted with permission from Phys. Biol., 7, 045003 (2010), Elrad and Hagan, Encapsulation of a polymer by an icosahedral virus, Copyright (2010) IOP Publishing.