The isotropic-nematic transition and the phase separation of the tobacco mosaic virus particles with polysaccharide

The isotropic-nematic transition of the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) particles by polysaccharide is related to a high inhibitory activity against TMV infection. We study the process of the isotropic-nematic transition of the TMV particles as a function of the polysaccharide concentration by Monte Carlo simulations in three-dimensional continuous space. In these simulations, we simplify the TMV particles and the polysaccharide molecules as the hard spherocylinders and semirigid chains, respectively, and we assume the simple interactions for the TMV particles and the polysaccharide chains. In our simulation, with increasing concentration of the polysaccharide the homogeneously dispersed TMV particles begin to segregate without orientational ordering, that is isotropic phase separation, and then transform to the nematic state of the TMV particles. The isotropic-nematic transition is caused by simple interactions such as the excluded volume effect, and the complicated biological interaction is not necessary. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(99)50528-X].