A virus is as a smart bomb, its protein shell a warhead containing DNA or RNA which can subvert genetic machinery of a cell. Now researchers describe in today's issue of Nature how this vehicle could be put to peaceful use, deliver drugs into cells.
Trevor Douglas, a materials scientist at Temple University, has spent years assembling molecules that could be cradled inside ferritin, a protein that carries iron around the body . The problem with ferritin, he says, is that it comes in one size. then a few years ago, Douglas saw a cartoon of a hollow virus coat and realized it could be used as a versatile container for molecules. With hundreds of known viruses, he said, "we have a whole library of shapes and sizes." Douglas teamed up with virologist Mark Young of Montana State University in Bozeman tinkering with making empty shells cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV).
CCMV, which normally mottled leaves of cowpea plants, is a polyhedron, or a ball multifaceted. When the solution pH is greater than 6, 5, VCC coating swell by 10%, the opening of 60 holes of about 2 nanometers in diameter. researchers have empty virus heads, called virions, and particles of a molecule called a tungstate well known in solution to pH above 6.5, and the tiny orbs tungstate flowed inside. After lowering the pH below 6.5, the holes in the closed virions, trapping inside tungstate. researcher who wants to use the virus head for transporting a drug could adapt the virion to meet the needs of the molecule, said Douglas.
Using virions for delivery of drugs "is an own concept," says Paul Robbins, a molecular geneticist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, however, he noted, several obstacles remain -. It including how to work with viruses that do swell and contract in changing the pH and how to trick the immune system to attack not virions. "the work is almost a proof of concept at this point," Douglas said .
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