Impact of the localization of the RNA binding domain of protein shells on the stability of virus particles

The simplest viruses are built from a protein shell, the capsid, assembled around its genome, which can be RNA or DNA. The focus of this talk is on RNA viruses that can form in vitro from their constituent components. It is widely accepted that electrostatic interactions between the capsid proteins and the genome is the main driving force for the self-assembly of simple single-stranded RNA viruses. In this talk, we investigate by means of computer simulations and scaling theory the impact of spatial localization of the RNA binding domains on the stability of viral shells. We obtain the optimal length of the genome as a function of capsid radius and find different scaling laws depending on the level of uniformity of the charge distribution.