Issue 3, 2016

Structurally plastic peptide capsules for synthetic antimicrobial viruses

Abstract

A conceptual design for artificial antimicrobial viruses is described. The design emulates viral assembly and function to create self-assembling peptide capsules that promote efficient gene delivery and silencing in mammalian cells. Unlike viruses, however, the capsules are antimicrobial, which allows them to exhibit a dual biological function: gene transport and antimicrobial activity. Unlike other antimicrobials, the capsules act as pre-concentrated antimicrobial agents that elicit rapid and localised membrane-disrupting responses by converting into individual pores at their precise landing positions on membranes. The concept holds promise for engineering virus-like scaffolds with biologically tuneable properties.

Graphical abstract: Structurally plastic peptide capsules for synthetic antimicrobial viruses

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
31 Aug. 2015
Accepted
17 Dec. 2015
First published
21 Dec. 2015
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2016,7, 1707-1711

Author version available

Structurally plastic peptide capsules for synthetic antimicrobial viruses

V. Castelletto, E. de Santis, H. Alkassem, B. Lamarre, J. E. Noble, S. Ray, A. Bella, J. R. Burns, B. W. Hoogenboom and M. G. Ryadnov, Chem. Sci., 2016, 7, 1707 DOI: 10.1039/C5SC03260A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements