Crystallization of satellite tobacco mosaic virus II. Postnucleation events

Quasi-elastic light scattering (QELS) was used to investigate nucleation and post nucleation events in the crystallization of satellite tobacco mosaic virus (STMV). The diameter of monomer STMV was measured to be ≈ 16 nm, which corresponds well with data from electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction results. The data suggests that the rate limiting factor in STMV crystal growth is the diffusion of virus clusters to the growing crystal nucleus...