The creation of particles and surfaces with complex functional architectures at the nanometer to micrometer scale is a promising capability afforded by advances in nanotechnology. One strategy for generating these materials is the hierarchical, bottom-up self-assembly of nanoscale components that occur naturally in biological systems.  <i>Tobacco mosaic virus</i> (TMV) is one example of a self-assembling biological system that has been studied extensively for nanoscale applications.  TMV is a filamentous plant virus with a hollow, tube-shaped rod of 300nm length x 18nm diameter consisting of ~2130 capsid protein (CP) subunits. Its high aspect ratio and high surface area generated from iterated copies of a single component protein make it attractive as a foundation for the design of novel nanostructured materials. Multiple acidic amino acid residues are incorporated into the viral CP, generating electrostatic repulsion between adjacent CP not only within the assembled rod, limiting assembly of virus rods without incorporated genomic RNA, but also between individual rods, encouraging their monodispersity. One pair of negatively charged, surface-exposed residues known to have particular importance to the virus’s structural stability through electrostatic repulsion is composed of glutamic acid E50 and aspartic acid D77, which are shown by structural analysis to interact between adjacent CP in the direction of the virus rod’s axial (longitudinal) direction. This project investigates the effects of altering these residues on the assembly behavior of TMV CP both within individual rods for the generation of a new class of virus-like particles (VLPs) and between different members of this class for the self-directed, hierarchical assembly of more complexly structured nanoparticles. Replacing the one or both of the negative charged carboxylate residues glutamic acid (E50) and aspartic acid (D77) with neutrally charged glutamine (E50Q) and asparagine (D77N) or positively charged lysine (E50K or D77K) results in self-assembling nanotube VLPs with unique rod end charge profiles which self-direct the end-to-end coassembly of distinct VLP populations into lengthened, chimeric VLP with longitudinally ordered structure. Addition of a well-positioned cysteine residue directs the perpendicular attachment of these complex VLPs to surfaces to for the development of surface-attached nanoscaffolds with distinct surface-proximal and surface-distal addressability and functionality.

Hierarchical self-assembly of novel tubular nanoparticles and surface-attached nanoscaffolds from modified <i>Tobacco mosaic virus</i> capsid protein

254th National Meeting (2017)

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Hierarchical self-assembly of novel tubular nanoparticles and surface-attached nanoscaffolds from modified Tobacco mosaic virus capsid protein