title: Disulfide bond: dramatically enhanced assembly capability and structural stability of tobacco mosaic virus nanorods.
abstract: Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is a classical viral nanoarchitecture that has been extensively employed as a promising template for the fabrication of novel nanomaterials and nanostructures. Despite being an ideal source, the Escherichia coli -derived TMV nanorod is suffering from tenuous assembly capability and stability. Inspired by the disulfide bond widely employed in biosystems, here we rationally introduce a cysteine into TMV coat protein (TMV-CP) to enable disulfide bond formation between adjacent subunits, thereby radically altering the behaviors of original noncovalent assembling system of wild type TMV-CP. The dramatically enhanced self-assembly capability and stability of the engineered TMV nanorods are observed and the essential roles of disulfide bonds are verified, illustrating a promising strategy to obtain desired genetic-modified nanorods that are inaccessible in plants. We expect this work will benefit the development of TMV-based nanotechnology and encourage the utilization of disulfide bonds in other biomacromolecules for improved properties as nanoscaffolds.
authors.affiliation: Suzhou Key Laboratory of Nanomedical Characterization, Division of Nanobiomedicine and i-Lab, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Gaole
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Chun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.forename: Qiangbin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D019943:Amino Acid Substitution; D036022:Capsid Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D003553:Cystine / Q000737:chemistry*; D004926:Escherichia coli; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D043942:Nanotubes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D055503:Protein Multimerization; D055550:Protein Stability; D021122:Protein Subunits / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D014027:Tobacco Mosaic Virus / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D036022:Capsid Proteins; D021122:Protein Subunits; D003553:Cystine