Fig. 3.

Mechanical stability of adenovirus particles with or without protein VII. (A) Representative AFM images along fatigue experiments for Ad5-VII- and Ad5-wt particles adsorbed on mica. Release of the first, second, and third pentons from the top facet are indicated with white circles. (B) Analysis of penton release for 9 Ad5-VII- and 7 Ad5-wt viral particles. At the beginning of the experiment, all visible pentons in the images are occupied (penton population = 1). The penton population decreases along the experiment. (C) Comparison of the evolution of Ad5-VII- and Ad5-wt particle volume during the fatigue experiment. (D) The image number at which each particle has undergone a 50% volume decrease is plotted for all particles analyzed.