SGER: Nanoparticle Core Virus-like Particles for Intracellular Probing

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Dragnea0631982ABSTRACTThe proposed research will elucidate the general principles underlying the synthesis of virus-likeparticles (VLP), which are novel bio-inspired hybrid systems composed of an icosahedral virus protein coat encapsulating a nanoparticle core. Such VLPs have potential practical utility as biomedical imaging and sensing tools, as novel functional materials, and as experimental models for molecular self-assembly of quasi-spherical molecular cages. VLP-based approaches to biological and biophysical problems go beyond existing technologies since: (1) As nonintrusive optical or magnetic intracellular probes, they push the spatial resolution limits by at least one order of magnitude. (2) As biological vectors, VLPs possess a regular surface structure, which allows the attachment of ligands at well-defined positions characterized by equivalent environments. (3) Principles of viral-entry can be exploited for non-intrusive introduction of nanoparticles inside cells. (4) As biophysical models for molecular cage self-assembly, VLPs benefit of tunable interactions between the inorganic core and the capsid. This feature is currently absent from models for virus assembly.