Self‐Organization of Oligomeric Helical Stacks Controlled by Substrate Binding in a Tobacco Mosaic Virus Like Self‐Assembly Process

Self-assembly with a twist: Linear polyammonium threads are templates in the organization of helical heterocyclic building blocks to form stacks of helices as a model for the Tobacco Mosaic Virus. The length of the cationic substrate and the spacing of the positive charges within the thread dictate the size of the final self-organized supramolecular architecture (see picture).