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标题：The capillarity of nanometric water menisci confined inside closed-geometry viral cages
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作者：C. Carrasco ; M. Douas ; R. Miranda 等
期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2009
卷号：106
期号：14
页码：5475-5480
DOI：10.1073/pnas.0810095106
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：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 {phi}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 {phi}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.
关键词：atomic force microscopy ; capillary forces ; water ; DNA ejection ; virus