Polyvalent Hybrid Virus-Like Nanoparticles with Displayed Heparin Antagonist Peptides.

The potential applications for nanomaterials continue to grow as new materials are developed and environmental and safety concerns are more adequately addressed. Virus7like particles (VLPs) in particular have myriad applications in medicine and biology, exploiting both the reliable, symmetric self7assembly mechanism and the ability to take advantage of surface functionalities that may be appropriately modified through mutation or bioconjugation. Herein we describe the design and application of hybrid VLPs for use as potent heparin antagonists, providing an alternative to the toxic heparin antidote protamine. A two7plasmid system was utilized to generate VLPs that contain both the wild7type coat protein and a second coat protein with either a C7 or N7terminal cationic peptide extension (4728 amino acids). Incorporation of the modified coat proteins varied from 8% to 31%, while activated partial thromboplastin time