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Atomic Force Microscopy of Viruses: Stability, Disassembly, and Genome Release

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Single Molecule Analysis

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2694))

Abstract

In atomic force microscopy (AFM), the probe is a nanometric tip located at the end of a microcantilever which palpates the specimen under study as a blind person manages a walking stick. In this way, AFM allows obtaining nanometric resolution images of individual protein shells, such as viruses, in liquid milieu. Beyond imaging, AFM also enables not only the manipulation of single protein cages but also the evaluation of each physicochemical property which is able of inducing any measurable mechanical perturbation to the microcantilever that holds the tip. In this chapter, we start revising some recipes for adsorbing protein shells on surfaces and how the geometrical dilation of tips can affect to the AFM topographies. This work also deals with the abilities of AFM to monitor TGEV coronavirus under changing conditions of the liquid environment. Subsequently, we describe several AFM approaches to study cargo release, aging, and multilayered viruses with single indentation and fatigue assays. Finally, we comment on a combined AFM/fluorescence application to study the influence of crowding on GFP packed within individual P22 bacteriophage capsids.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel Cantero, María Jesús Rodríguez-Espinosa, Klara Strobl, Alejandro Díez-Martínez, Manuel Jiménez-Zaragoza, Alvaro Ortega-Esteban & Pedro José de Pablo

  2. Department of Structure of Macromolecules, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB–CSIC), Madrid, Spain

    María Jesús Rodríguez-Espinosa

  3. Department of Theoretical Physics of Condensed Matter, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Pablo Ibáñez

  4. Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, AFMB UMR, Marseille, France

    Natalia Martín-González

  5. Solid Condensed Matter Institute IFIMAC, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Pedro José de Pablo

Authors
  1. Miguel Cantero
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  2. María Jesús Rodríguez-Espinosa
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  3. Klara Strobl
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  4. Pablo Ibáñez
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  5. Alejandro Díez-Martínez
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  6. Natalia Martín-González
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  7. Manuel Jiménez-Zaragoza
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  8. Alvaro Ortega-Esteban
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  9. Pedro José de Pablo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pedro José de Pablo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. LaserLaB Amsterdam and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Iddo Heller

  2. LaserLaB Amsterdam and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    David Dulin

  3. LaserLaB Amsterdam and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Erwin J.G. Peterman

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Cantero, M. et al. (2024). Atomic Force Microscopy of Viruses: Stability, Disassembly, and Genome Release. In: Heller, I., Dulin, D., Peterman, E.J. (eds) Single Molecule Analysis . Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2694. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3377-9_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3377-9_15

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-3376-2

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