Packaging stiff polymers in small containers: A molecular dynamics study

摘要

The question of how stiff polymers are able to pack into small containers isparticularly relevant to the study of DNA packaging in viruses. A reducedversion of the problem based on coarse-grained representations of the maincomponents of the system -- the DNA polymer and the spherical viral capsid --has been studied by molecular dynamics simulation. The results, involvinglonger polymers than in earlier work, show that as polymers become more rigidthere is an increasing tendency to self-organize as spools that wrap from theinside out, rather than the inverse direction seen previously. In the finalstate, a substantial part of the polymer is packed into one or more coaxialspools, concentrically layered with different orientations, a form of packagingachievable without twisting the polymer.