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efficient encapsulation of gold nanoparticles, magnetic iron oxide
nanoparticles, or CdSe/ZnS QDs into BMV VLPs was achieved using DNA or
carboxylate-terminated PEG coatings (Chen
et al
., 2006; Dixit
et al
., 2006;
Huang
., 2007). The carboxylate-terminated PEG coating
was found to be particularly successful with yields of 95
et al
., 2007; Sun
et al
±
5% core-containing
VLPs (Fig. 5.7) (Chen
., 2006). The overall negative charge (derived from
the terminating carboxylate groups) mimics the negatively charged natural
cargo (the nucleic acid), and the hydrophilic PEG polymers provide a scaffold
resistant to non-specific interactions of biomolecules.
et al
..1..1  Size of the core determines the size of the assembled hybrid
VLP
Smaller nanoparticle cores typically yield smaller VLPs. For example, self-
assembly of VLPs around 4 nm-sized PEG-carboxylate-coated QDs yielded
VLPs that resembled
= 2 symmetry. Interestingly, the majority of the
VLPs contained two or three QDs (Fig. 5.8) (Dixit
pseudo
T
et al
., 2006).
Figure 5.8
(a) Transmission electron microscopy images of VLPs containing
carboxylate-terminated PEG-coated QDs. (b, c)
Image reconstruction of QD/BMV
(b) and
= 2 BMV capsids isolated from plant extracts (c). Reproduced with
permission from Dixit, S. K., Goicochea, N. L., Daniel, M. C., Murali, A., Bronstein,
L., De, M., Stein, B., Rotello, V. M., Kao, C. C., and Dragnea, B. (2006) Quantum dot
encapsulation in viral capsids,
T
Nano Lett.
,
6
(9), 1993-1999.
The effects of VLP size and symmetry were systematically evaluated
using carboxylate-terminated PEG-coated gold cores of 6, 9, 12, 15, and
18 nm (Sun
., 2007). The most efficient encapsulation occurred with
gold cores with a diameter of 12 nm, yielding VLPs similar to wild-type
BMV particles and high degree of homogeneity. VLPs assembled from
smaller gold cores yielded smaller VLPs, and VLPs assembled from larger
et al
 
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