Polymer Coatings on Virus-like Particle Nanoreactors at Low Ionic Strength-Charge Reversal and Substrate Access

Virus-like particles (VLPs) are a class of biomaterials which serve as platforms for achieving the desired functionality through interior and exterior modifications. Through ionic strength-mediated electrostatic interactions, VLPs have been assembled into hierarchically ordered materials. This work builds on predictive models to prepare polymer-coated VLP clusters at very low ionic strength. Zeta potential measurements showed that the clusters carried a strongly positive charge, a complete charge reversal from the VLP building block. SAXS analysis confirmed polymer adsorption onto the VLP exterior. We then studied the activity of an encapsulated enzyme toward small molecular and macromolecular substrates to determine the effect of each component of the hierarchically assembled material. We found that while encapsulation and polymer coating did not have a large effect on access to the enzyme by its native, small molecular substrate, substrate modification with a macromolecule caused the polymer coating and encapsulation to affect the access to the enzyme.