In biology, there are an abundant number of self-assembled structures organized according to hierarchical levels of complexity. In some examples, the assemblies formed at each level exhibit unique properties and behaviors not present in individual components. Viruses are an example of such where first individual subunits come together to form a capsid structure, some utilizing a scaffolding protein to template or catalyze the capsid formation. Increasing the level of complexity, the viral capsids can then be used as building blocks of higher-level assemblies. This has inspired scientists to design and construct virus capsid-based functional nano-materials. This review provides some insight into the assembly of virus capsids across several length scales, and certain properties that arise at different levels, providing examples found in naturally occurring systems and those that are synthetically designed.

在生物学中，有许多根据复杂性的层次结构组织的自组装结构。在一些示例中，在每个级别上形成的组件都具有独特的特性和行为，这些特性和行为在单个组件中不存在。病毒就是这样的一个例子，其中第一个单个的亚基汇聚在一起形成衣壳结构，有些利用支架蛋白来模板化或催化衣壳形成。病毒的衣壳增加了复杂性，因此可以用作更高级别的程序集的构建基块。这激发了科学家设计和构建基于病毒衣壳的功能纳米材料。这篇评论提供了一些关于跨多个长度尺度的病毒衣壳装配的一些见解，以及在不同水平出现的某些特性的信息，