LAUSR

Artificial viruses are model systems for the understanding of natural viruses and potential vehicles for genetic material delivery. It is still a challenge to fully reproduce the natural viral cooperativity behavior during the self-assembly process[1], therefore we are working with simplified model systems in which we can easily and freely tune interaction parameters. This study focuses on the assembly kinetics of an artificial polypeptide designed to self-assemble into a rodshaped virus-like particle on double stranded DNA[2]. We employed optical tweezers which allowed us to suspend the DNA tether in solution and to monitor by confocal fluorescence microscopy the peptide binding, unbinding and sliding along the DNA in real-time using fluorescently labelled peptides[3]. We also employed acoustic force spectroscopy (AFS) as complementary technique for monitoring the realtime self-assembly at low forces (1-2 pN)[4]. This work opens the doors for new insights into the assembly process of rodshaped artificial and natural viruses.