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Elastic Properties of Viruses

B. Stephanidis ^*, S. Adichtchev ^*, P. Gouet , A. McPherson  and A. Mermet ^*

^* Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie des Matériaux Luminescents, Université Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France; Institut de Biologie et Chimie des Protéines, Université Lyon 1, Lyon, France; and Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, California USA

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to A. Mermet, Tel.: 33-4-72-43-29-72; E-mail: mermet{at}pcml.univ-lyon1.fr.

Viruses are compact biological nanoparticles whose elastic and dynamical properties are hardly known. Inelastic (Brillouin) light scattering was used to characterize these properties, from microcrystals of the Satellite Tobacco Mosaic Virus, a nearly spherical plant virus of 17-nm diameter. Longitudinal sound velocities in wet and dry Satellite Tobacco Mosaic Virus crystals were determined and compared to that of the well-known protein crystal, lysozyme. Localized vibrational modes of the viral particles (i.e., particle modes) were sought in the relevant frequency ranges, as derived assuming the viruses as full free nanospheres. Despite very favorable conditions, regarding virus concentration and expected low damping in dry microcrystals, no firm evidence of virus particle modes could be detected.