FIG. 5.

(a) Representative examples of capsomers assembled around spherical nanoparticles with radius $R_{\mathrm{s}}^{\prime }=9.5$. From left to right, R_cone = 5.0, 9.5 and 15.5nm. The line over each capsid approximately shows its preferred curvature. Below each snapshot we show a schematic of the relative size between the nanoparticle (yellow) and the protein capsid in bulk (purple). (b) Energy per capsomer assembled around spherical nanoparticles as a function of ${\gamma }_{\text{nr}}\equiv R_{\text{cone}}/R_{\mathrm{s}}^{\prime }$.In the simulations for (b), we kept the capsomer radius ≡ constant R_cone = 13.0nm and changed the nanoparticle size. (c) Continuum result for bending energy / capsomer on a spherical surface, u_sphere (Eq. (7), as a function of curvature ratio for indicated values of the spontaneous curvature radius R_cone.