Abstract

Structural biology and single molecule biophysics are producing quantitative insights into  biological structure and function at a dizzying rate.  One especially exciting class of measurements concern the physics of DNA packaging in both viruses and eucaryotic chromosomes.  The goal of this talk is to examine the physics challenges that emerge in considering the  problem of DNA packaging and to illustrate our recent efforts to build quantitative models of these processes.  Special reference will be made to the forces that arise as the molecular motor which packages DNA into viruses works against an ever increasing pressure due to the already packaged DNA.   Recent work suggests that the pressure due to packaged DNA within a virus can exceed 60 atm and we examine the implications of these results both for the nature of the motor which packages DNA as well as for the way in which viral structures can sustain such pressures.