We investigate condensation of a long confined chiral nematic polymer inside a spherical enclosure, mimicking condensation of DNA inside a viral capsid. The Landau-de Gennes nematic free-energy Ansatz appropriate for nematic polymers allows us to study the condensation process in detail with different boundary conditions at the enclosing wall that simulate repulsive and attractive polymer-surface interactions. By increasing the chirality, we observe a transformation of the toroidal condensate into a closed surface with an increasing genus, in some respects akin to the ordered domain formation observed in cryo-microscopy of bacteriophages.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2523492
We described some aspects of electrostatic interactions in free energy and osmotic pressure of viruses. We found out that DNA and RNA viruses differ in this regard, as the former have a large and pozitive osmotic pressure while the latter have a small and negative osmotic pressure. These differences have important consequences for virus (self)assembly.
COBISS.SI-ID: 25607463
Swollen elastomer liquid crystals undergo significant deformations by application of an electric field perpendicular to their alignment axis, as shown in experiments by Urayama et al. [Urayama K, Honda S, Takigawa T (2006) Macromolecules 39:1943-1949]. Here we clarify this surprising effect at the molecular level using largescale Monte Carlo simulations of an off-lattice model based on a soft Gay-Berne potential. We provide the internal change of molecular organization, as well as the key observables during the actuation cycle.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2439012