Modeling the Kinetics of Open Self-Assembly

In this work, we
explore theoretically the kinetics of molecular
self-assembly in the presence of constant monomer flux as an input,
and a maximal size. The proposed model is supposed to reproduce the
dynamics of viral self-assembly for enveloped virus. It turns out
that the kinetics of open self-assembly is rather quantitatively different
from the kinetics of similar closed assembly. In particular, our results
show that the convergence toward the stationary state is reached through
assembly waves. Interestingly, we show that the production of complete
clusters is much more efficient in the presence of a constant input
flux, rather than providing all monomers at the beginning of the self-assembly.