Self-assembly of virus like particles and their biomedical applications

Viral capsids are the protein shell of viruses. They can be formed as virus-like particles (VLPs) via the self-assembly process with or without DNA/RNA. It is interesting to reveal their self-assembly process in different virus capsid systems. In this study, both bacterial phage MS2 protein and shrimp white spot syndrome VP28 are recombinantly expressed in a heterologous system. MS2-VLP self-assembly process is known to be a nucleotide-dependent process. However, we found the VP28-VLP self-assembly process as a concentration-dependent process. We observed the particle size of VP28 increase continuously from ~8 nm to ~30 nm when the concentration increased from 62.5 μg/ml to 1 mg/ml. Based on this information, heparin-conjugated VP28-VLPs can be fabricated to enhance the anti-thrombosis function of heparin accordingly. Furthermore, MS2-VLPs have been utilized to encapsulate hydrophobic cargoes and characterized for their drug loading/unloading efficiency. We are actively working to study the delivery efficacy of our both nano-formulation. Moreover, these VLPs did not induce any immune response in animal studies. Therefore, these VLPs will have a huge impact on the application of drugs/gene delivery.