Chromonic liquid crystals and packing configurations of bacteriophage viruses.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci
; 379(2201): 20200111, 2021 Jul 12.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34024128
ABSTRACT
We study equilibrium configurations of hexagonal columnar liquid crystals in the context of characterizing packing structures of bacteriophage viruses in a protein capsid. These are viruses that infect bacteria and are currently the focus of intense research efforts, with the goal of finding new therapies for bacteria-resistant antibiotics. The energy that we propose consists of the Oseen-Frank free energy of nematic liquid crystals that penalizes bending of the columnar directions, in addition to the cross-sectional elastic energy accounting for distortions of the transverse hexagonal structure; we also consider the isotropic contribution of the core and the energy of the unknown interface between the outer ordered region of the capsid and the inner disordered core. The problem becomes of free boundary type, with constraints. We show that the concentric, azimuthal, spool-like configuration is the absolute minimizer. Moreover, we present examples of toroidal structures formed by DNA in free solution and compare them with the analogous ones occurring in experiments with other types of lyotropic liquid crystals, such as food dyes and additives. This article is part of the theme issue 'Topics in mathematical design of complex materials'.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Bacteriophages
/
Liquid Crystals
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci
Journal subject:
BIOFISICA
/
ENGENHARIA BIOMEDICA
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country: