The SARS-CoV-2 is covered by a layer of “spikes” whose mobility (yet to be determined) has been proposed to be related to the infection process. Miklós S. Z. Kellermayer et al. (Semmelweis University, Budapest) “by imaging and mechanically manipulating individual, native SARS-CoV-2 virions with AFM” have proved that this layer is in fact dynamic. The virions show also a remarkable resistance to deformation and they’re able to recover from extreme mechanical deformations. You can read the details in their paper published in Nanoletters.
As a side note, the AFM experimental images they’ve published are just beautiful.
To illustrate the experiments we made this picture, under the close supervision of first author, Bálint Kiss, which has been featured in the cover of Nanoletters.