Dual Functionalized Bacteriophage Qβ as a Photocaged Drug Carrier

Proteinatious nanoparticles are emerging as promising materials in biomedical research owing to their many unique properties and our interest focuses on integrating environmental responsivity into these systems. In this work, the use of a virus-like particle (VLP) derived from bacteriophage Qβ as a photocaged drug delivery system is investigated. Ideally, a photocaged nanoparticle platform should be harmless and inert without activation by light yet, upon photoirradiation, should cause cell death. Approximately 530 photocleavable doxorubicin complexes are installed initially onto the surface of Qβ by CuAAC reaction for photocaging therapy; however, aggregation and precipitation are found to cause cell death at higher concentrations. In order to improve solution stability, thiol-dibromomaleimide chemistry has been developed to orthogonally modify the VLP. This chemistry provides a robust method of incorporating additional functionality at the disulfides on Qβ, which was used to increase the stability and solubility of the drug-loaded VLPs. As a result, the dual functionalied VLPs with polyethylene glycol and photocaged doxorubicin show not only negligible cytotoxicity before photoactivation but also highly controllable photorelease and cell killing power.