Crystallization of satellite tobacco mosaic virus I. Nucleation phenomena

Quasi-elastic light scattering (QELS) was used to investigate homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation events in the crystallization of satellite tobacco mosaic virus (STMV). Under conditions of relatively moderate supersaturation (σ ≈ 1.00–1.40), the critical nuclear size supportive of stable crystal growth, Rc, was estimated from time dependent size distribution analyses to be in the range of 30 to 7 virus particles respectively. From the same...