Self-assembly of retroviral shells and the role of line tension.

We use continuum elasticity theory to investigate the dynamics of assembly of viral shells. The focus of our study is on the spherical, conical, and spherocylindical structures pertinent to the capsids of retroviruses such as HIV. Within continuum elasticity formalism almost all available results on curved topographies to date are obtained within either a small curvature expansion or an empirical covariant generalization that accounts for screening between Gaussian curvature and disclinations. In this talk, we present a formulation of elasticity theory in curved geometries that allows us to solve the exact elasticity equations for completely general geometries including those relevant to the structure of retroviruses. I also present how our formalism allows us to include the effect of line tension when a viral shell grows.