Protruding Features of Viral Capsids Are Clustered on Icosahedral Great Circles
Fig 12
HK97 Prohead II—this relatively large T7 virus under goes a maturation to the Head II state, see Fig 13.
Shown here are two of its hexamers (lower half of image) with their protrusions shaded in blue. The most radially distal protrusions are all located near the gauge points, shown in red. Quasiequivalence says the proteins should be nearly identical, however their protrusions are clearly not, as some are recessed into the capsid, seen as lighter blue. This result supports our suggestion of new restrictions for capsid modifications of protrusions.