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I'm interested in the composition of SARS-CoV-2, including how many copies of each protein are present in an assembled virus, as well as the overall mass and density. There are a few recent papers such as Klein 2020 and Yao 2020 which provide a lot of useful info on the structure of the virus, but they do not completely answer that question. For example Klein estimates 48 (range from 25 to 127) copies of S, but doesn't say anything about how many copies of M, N or E there are. I have not been able to find a full answer even after a pretty thorough literature search. Considering how good molecular biology (and imaging) tools are nowadays, and the importance of the subject, this seems like a pretty astonishing gap in knowledge.

Question: What is the exact composition (stochiometry) of SARS-CoV-2, in terms of how many copies of each building block are present in each virus particle?

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  • $\begingroup$ Spikes are somewhat easy to see and count on an electron microscope image. Not sure why you think the other ones are just as easy to see/count. $\endgroup$
    – perfidious pidgeon
    Commented Nov 1, 2021 at 4:38
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    $\begingroup$ And I'm rather doubtful you'll find a firm answer. Seven years after SARS discovery, there was still disagreement as to its M-assembled structure. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4486061 $\endgroup$
    – perfidious pidgeon
    Commented Nov 1, 2021 at 4:52
  • $\begingroup$ Even shotgun mass spec should be able to quantify everything using the quantity of RNA as a reference. Tools today are way better than in 2011 when the Neuman article was published. Could you please link any articles that show people trying to do this kind of quantification and running into problems? $\endgroup$
    – Alex I
    Commented Nov 1, 2021 at 5:35
  • $\begingroup$ @Fizz I agree that it would be hard to get this type of data from SEM. There may be other options that allow proteins to be counted, for example TIRF or STORM single molecule imaging, or TEM with antibodies conjugated with gold nanoparticles as contrast agent $\endgroup$
    – Alex I
    Commented Nov 1, 2021 at 7:04
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    $\begingroup$ Probably there are some data of this kind, surely not as exact as in stochiometry. There must be a basis for this picture commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/… . Ah, note that the virus membrane itself is stolen from the host cell and not made by the virus. $\endgroup$
    – Sir Cornflakes
    Commented Nov 16, 2021 at 15:48

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