This is a graphical representation of the HIV-1 viron or core which has the shape and structure of a buckminsterfullerene cone. The HIV-1 virus capsid or viron is not uniquely shaped but there is a common characteristic among all HIV-1 cores of having 12 pentamers (in the context of a polyhedron, a pentamer is represented by a pentagon) with 7 on one end and 5 on another. This specific virus, which is known as Cone1, has 1,572 proteins, 3 at each vertex or point. There are 786 bonds between these groups of three proteins represented by edges or lines. The fullerene cone polyhedron has 264 faces, 12 of which are pentagons, the remaining 252 are hexagons.
Usage: Mouse or finger will move the virus. A swipe of mouse or finger off the graphic will leave the virus spinning. A click or touch will stop the spin. A space bar or two-finger touch will toggle the rendering from wireframe to solid to points.
Source: The underlying data were provided courtesy of Wesley Sundquist and Barbie Ganser based on research reported in: Barbie K. Ganser, Su Li, Victor Y. Klishko, John T. Finch, Wesley I. Sundquist, "Assembly and Analysis of Conical Models for the HIV-1 Core," Science, Vol. 1, No. 5398, 80-83, (1999).
Source: The javascript libraries for Canvas K3D were placed into the public domain by Kevin Roast, email: kevtoast at yahoo.com and twitter at @kevinroast.
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