We conjecture that certain patterns (scars), theoretically and numerically predicted to be formed by electrons arranged on a sphere to minimize the repulsive Coulomb potential (the Thomson problem) and experimentally found in spherical crystals formed by self-assembled polystyrene beads (an instance of the generalized Thomson problem), could be relevant to extend the classic Caspar and Klug construction for icosahedrally-shaped virus capsids. The main idea is that scars could be produced at an intermediate stage of the assembly of the virus capsids and the release of the bending energy present in scars into stretching energy could allow for a variety of non-spherical capsids' shapes. The conjecture can be tested in experiments on the assembly of artificial protein-cages where these scars should appear.

我们推测，从理论上和数字上看，某些模式(伤疤) 预测是由排列在球体上的电子形成的，以使 排斥库仑势(汤姆森问题)和实验中发现的 聚苯乙烯微珠自组装成球状晶体(一例 广义汤姆逊问题)，可以用来推广经典的 Caspar和Klug构建二十面体形状的病毒衣壳。主 想法是，疤痕可能会在组装的中间阶段产生 病毒衣壳和疤痕中存在的弯曲能量的释放 转化为伸展的能量可能允许各种非球形衣壳 形状。这一猜想可以在组装的实验中得到验证 人造蛋白--这些疤痕应该出现的笼子。