PACKAGING OF MAGNETIC NANOPARTICLES INTO HBV CORE PROTEIN-FORMED CAPSIDS

摘要

A present invention demonstrates feasibility of combination of inorganic and organic nanomaterials and is related to molecular biology, biotechnology and nanotechnology. Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) with cationic coating are packed into HBc virus-like particles (VLP), namely, HBc??particles which are formed by C-terminally truncated HBc??proteins. Such packaging combines application fields of MNP (NMR, X-ray and fluorescence imaging) with advantages of VLPs (specific antigenicity, high immunogenicity, addressing in vitro and in vivo, DNA and RNA packaging, reconstruction by protein engineering). HBc??VLP with packed Fe3O4 MNP is applicable in diagnostics and therapy. Such particles are useful for construction of vaccines and as gene therapy tools as well as for high-precision MNP separation or formation of MNP arrays.