We present an investigation of water menisci confined in closed geometries by studying the structural effects of their capillary forces on viruses during the final stage of desiccation. We used individual particles of the bacteriophage 29 and the minute virus of mice. In both cases the genomic DNA was ejected from the capsid. However, although the structural integrity of the minute virus of mice was essentially preserved, the 29 capsid underwent a wall-to-wall collapse. We provide evidence that the capillary forces of water confined inside the viruses are mainly responsible for these effects. Moreover, by performing theoretical simulations with a lattice gas model, we found that some structural differences between these 2 viruses may be crucial to explain the different ways in which they are affected by water menisci forces confined at the nanoscale.atomic force microscopy ͉ capillary forces ͉ water ͉ DNA ejection ͉ virus T he action of capillary forces created by water menisci is very important in wetting-dewetting processes taking place at the liquid-gas interface (1). Moreover, water menisci at the nanoscale play a central role in many phenomena, such us hydration forces in biology and colloid science (2, 3). A lot of effort has been dedicated to the understanding of the shape of, and forces exerted by, water menisci in a variety of geometries. All of the systems studied so far consist of nonclosed geometries where water is confined between 2 surfaces, such us surfacenanosphere systems (4-6) and micro and nanochannels (7, 8); or systems with openings as big as the cavity itself, such us carbon nanotubes (9, 10). Thus far, no attention has been paid to the influence of the water meniscus on the containing structure or to out-of-equilibrium systems. Herein, we present experiments on a closed-geometry container, such as a virus particle, subjected to the capillary action of water menisci confined up to the final stages of a desiccation process. By investigating the initial and final stages of these biological cavities, we deduce the capillarity of the confined water by using numerical simulations.We have chosen 2 geometrically different icosahedral viral models, Bacillus subtilis bacteriophage 29 and the minute virus of mice (MVM). The capsid of phage 29 (54 ϫ 42 nm in size, Fig. 1A) is assembled from 6 different structural polypeptides and encapsidates a double-stranded (ds) DNA molecule (11,12). In one of the end caps, the central pentamer is replaced by the connector complex. In the complete virion, a proteinaceous tail complex is attached to the connector. The MVM encloses a single-stranded (ss) DNA molecule and is one of the smallest and structurally simplest (T ϭ 1) viruses known (25 nm in diameter, Fig. 1B) (13). We have used atomic force microscopy (AFM) (14) to investigate the structural effects of desiccation on DNA-filled virions and empty capsids (devoid of DNA), for both 29 and MVM. Desiccation produced the ejection of DNA from both 29 and MVM virions and led to a full collapse of the 29 capsid, whe...
By using a lattice‐gas model, we report numerical simulation for the action of capillary forces of water confined at the nanoscale during desiccation of viruses. Results are compared with structural effects of desiccation measured by Atomic Force Microscopy on individual viruses of the bacteriophage ϕ 29 and the minute virus of mice (MVM). Structural integrity is found for theMVM, but not for the ϕ 29. Numerical simulations show that in the desiccation process, the meniscus shape formed inside the capsids strongly depends on the virus symmetry. This suggests that capillary forces could play a key role on the explanation of the different measured collapse processes (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
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