A Multifunctionalized Potyvirus-Derived Nanoparticle That Targets and Internalizes into Cancer Cells
Daniel A. Truchado, María Juárez-Molina, Sara Rincón, Lucía Zurita, Jaime Tomé-Amat, Corina Lorz, Fernando Ponz- Inorganic Chemistry
- Organic Chemistry
- Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
- Computer Science Applications
- Spectroscopy
- Molecular Biology
- General Medicine
- Catalysis
Plant viral nanoparticles (VNPs) are attractive to nanomedicine researchers because of their safety, ease of production, resistance, and straightforward functionalization. In this paper, we developed and successfully purified a VNP derived from turnip mosaic virus (TuMV), a well-known plant pathogen, that exhibits a high affinity for immunoglobulins G (IgG) thanks to its functionalization with the Z domain of staphylococcal Protein A via gene fusion. We selected cetuximab as a model IgG to demonstrate the versatility of this novel TuMV VNP by developing a fluorescent nanoplatform to mark tumoral cells from the Cal33 line of a tongue squamous cell carcinoma. Using confocal microscopy, we observed that fluorescent VNP–cetuximab bound selectively to Cal33 and was internalized, revealing the potential of this nanotool in cancer research.