Geometric architecture of viruses

Figure 1 The structural and morphological diversity of viruses. A: Electron micrograph of some representative animal, plant, fungal and bacterial viruses; B: Cartoon representation of virions showing their sizes (20-400 nm) and shapes (spherical, polyhedral, elliptical, rod-like etc.).

Figure 2 Morphologically spherical but geometrically polyhedral formations. A: The virion-like universally adopted structures in human art and culture: 1. Ancient wood carving, Ephesus, Turkey; 2. Ancient Roman dodecahedron, Gallo-Roman Museum of Tongeren, Belgium; 3. Ancient petroglyph, Osirian Temple, Abydos, Egypt; 4. Neolithic stone spheres, Scotland, United Kingdom; 5. Guardian lion or Shishi, Yonghe Temple, Beijing, China; 6. Amazon Sphere, Seattle, United States; and 7. Tianjin Binhai Library, Tianjin, China; B: Spherical viruses with icosahedral capsids. PAV: Parvovirus; CMV: Cytomegalovirus; NV: Norovirus; HBV: Hepatitis B virus; 29¹: bacteriophage; SARS-CoV-2: Severe acute respiratory syndrome virus-2; BTV: Bluetongue virus; SV40: Simian virus 40; HSV-1: Herpes simplex virus; MLV: Murine leukemia virus; HIV-1: Human immunodeficiency virus-1; Influenza: Influenza virus.

Figure 3 Cubic symmetry, the inherent characteristic of polyhedrons. A: Tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron and dodecahedron formed of three or more identical faces, identical vertices and identical edges; B: Icosahedral capsid (e.g., T = 1, 3, 4) with principle of axes of symmetry (e.g., 2-3-5 symmetry).

Figure 4 Icosahedral capsid formation. Capsid formation with rings of five subunits i.e., pentamers or six subunits i.e. hexamers at the vertices of each of the faces (Left panel; Penta-/hexameric artifacts, Gallery Mall, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia).

Figure 5 Schematic presentation of icosahedral capsids. A: A Clug model of icosahedral capsid assembly; B: Formation of icosahedral T = 1 (subunit _A), T = 3 (subunits _A, _B and _C) and T = 4 (subunits _A, _B, _C and _D) capsids.

Figure 6 A cartoon presentation of an icosahedral capsid assembly. A: Construction of a polyhedral shade with equilaterally triangular glass panes (Metro Rail Project, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia); B: Assembly of an icosahedral (T = 1) capsid of a spherical virus.