title: Packaging stiff polymers in small containers: A molecular dynamics study.
abstract: The question of how stiff polymers are able to pack into small containers is particularly relevant to the study of DNA packaging in viruses. A reduced version of the problem based on coarse-grained representations of the main components of the system-the DNA polymer and the spherical viral capsid-has been studied by molecular dynamics simulation. The results, involving longer polymers than in earlier work, show that as polymers become more rigid there is an increasing tendency to self-organize as spools that wrap from the inside out, rather than the inverse direction seen previously. In the final state, a substantial part of the polymer is packed into one or more coaxial spools, concentrically layered with different orientations, a form of packaging achievable without twisting the polymer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
authors.forename: D C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Rapaport