Bioengineering Novel Floating Nanoparticles for Protein and Drug Delivery

Abstract

Gas vesicle nanoparticles (GVNPs) are hollow protein nanoparticles produced by Halobacterium sp. NRC-1 which are beingengineered for protein delivery. To advance thebioengineering potential of GVNPs, a strain of NRC-1 deleted for the gvpC gene (δgvpC) was constructed and a synthetic gene coding for Gaussia princeps luciferase wasfused to an abbreviated gvpC gene on an expression plasmid. When introduced into theδgvpC strain, an active GvpC-luciferase fusion protein bound to GVNPs resulted. These results represent both a technical improvement in the GVNP display system and its expansionforthe display of active enzymes.