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Biophysical Journal 85:70-74 (2003)
© 2003 The Biophysical Society

Osmotic Shock and the Strength of Viral Capsids

Amado Cordova *, Markus Deserno *, William M. Gelbart * and Avinoam Ben-Shaul {dagger}

* Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1569 USA; and {dagger} Department of Physical Chemistry and the Fritz Haber Institute, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to Markus Deserno, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569. Tel.: 310-206-2330; Fax: 310-206-4038; E-mail: markus{at}chem.ucla.edu.

Osmotic shock is a familiar means for rupturing viral capsids and exposing their genomes intact. The necessary conditions for providing this shock involve incubation in high-concentration salt solutions, and lower permeability of the capsids to salt ions than to water molecules. We discuss here how values of the capsid strength can be inferred from calculations of the osmotic pressure differences associated with measured values of the critical concentration of incubation solution.




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