Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
and metal deposition techniques as well as their potential applications are
discussed in Chapters 6 and 7.
A third direction began a few years later. In 2002, the first study was
reported in which bioconjugation chemistries had been applied to a VNP.
The research teams led by Johnson and Finn (The Scripps Research Institute,
La Jolla, CA, USA) showed, in a proof-of-concept study, that small chemical
modifiers such as organic dyes and nanogold particles could be covalently
attached to the surface of CPMV. Attachment and display was achieved
with atomic precision (Wang
, 2002). Since then, various chemistries
ranging from standard techniques utilizing commercially available reagents
to complex and advanced reactions have been developed (discussed in
Chapter 4). The establishment of a wide variety of bioconjugation protocols
for VNPs was an important development and can be regarded as fundamental
to viral nanotechnology. Functional molecules such as therapeutic or imaging
molecules for drug delivery and imaging applications, for example, can be
covalently attached and displayed on the VNPs, and this has opened the door
for developing “smart” devices for medical applications.
The field of viral nanotechnology is still a young discipline that is rapidly
evolving. A broad range of VNP platforms have been exploited or show
promise in applications ranging from the development of battery electrodes
to medical imaging and drug delivery.
et al.
1.  Why VnPs? MAterIAlS ProPertIeS oF VnPs
When a virologist looks at a virus, he or she might see a pathogen, an infectious
agent that is causing a disease. What does a chemist or a materials scientist
see in VNPs? Working at the interface of chemistry and medicine, we see
tiny building blocks, platforms that can be tuned with functionalities. A VNP
can be regarded as a platform that is used as a template or scaffold for the
generation of functional materials. The regular surface properties of VNPs
allow one to covalently attach functional molecules (termed
functionalizing
).
VNPs are
with
a broad range of molecules used for manifold applications. The covalent
modification can also lead to a
programmable
and
tunable
, as they can be
functionalized
of the materials properties; for
example, the charge properties can be altered by attaching neutral groups
to charged surface groups on the viral capsid.
VNPs occur in two basic shapes, icosahedral and rod (Fig. 1.3). An
icosahedron is a polyhedron with 20 triangular faces; the icosahedral
symmetry description is explained in detail in Chapter 2. More complex
structures such as head-tail bacteriophages, enveloped viruses, and even
spindle- and bottle-shaped particles can also be found. For example, the
particles of
tuning
Acidianus
bottle-shaped virus (ABV) indeed look like a bottle
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