Abstract We review approaches aimed at deciphering the physical mechanisms responsible for viral structure and assembly. We discuss the basic principles of condensed matter physics, macroscopic electrostatics and elastomechanics as they apply to nanosized two-dimensional biomolecular shells with spherical topology and icosahedral symmetry, as well as their proper extension to nonspherical structures pertinent to retroviruses. We examine the relation between the virus structure, the physical interactions that are driving their (self)assembly and the thermodynamics of transition from an isotropic protein solution to the assembled shell state, and discuss the driving forces for large-scale structural reorganizations characterizing maturation processes in the already assembled nano-shells. We furthermore review physical models corresponding to the condensed states of confined genome-carrying biopolymers in viral nano-shells during virus self-assembly and host-cell infection processes, and show how the combination of discrete and continuum coarse grained mechanics, commonly used in the fundamental physical description of viruses, together with the pertinent description of generic long-range electrostatic and specific short-range interactions give insight into the details of structural order and mechanical properties of viruses and elucidates their role in nano-container and nano-machine functions.

中文翻译：

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关于病毒的生长和形式

摘要 我们回顾了旨在破译负责病毒结构和组装的物理机制的方法。我们讨论了凝聚态物理学、宏观静电学和弹性力学的基本原理，因为它们适用于具有球形拓扑结构和二十面体对称性的纳米二维生物分子壳，以及它们对与逆转录病毒相关的非球形结构的适当扩展。我们研究了病毒结构、驱动它们（自）组装的物理相互作用以及从各向同性蛋白质溶液到组装壳状态的热力学之间的关系，并讨论了表征成熟过程的大规模结构重组的驱动力在已经组装好的纳米壳中。