Li Feng's team worked with Zhang Xiann's team to establish a universal strategy of biometric mineralization in protein cages.

Biometal mineralization is a common phenomenon in nature, such as the formation of teeth, bones, magnetosomes, etc.
In inspired by it, in recent years, mineralization with biom molecules as a template has also become an important way for materialists to control the synthesis of new materials, in nano-imaging, high sensitivity sensing, tumor noninvasive diagnosis and treatment, vaccines, catalysis, batteries and other fields have important application value.
virus nanoparticles (virus-based nanoparticles) are hollow cage-shaped or tubular structures formed by the self-assembly of viral shell proteins, generally 10-200 nanometers in size, with precise three-dimensional structure, is an ideal biometering template for nanomaterials.
not only provides precise control of size and appearance, but also provides a platform for versatile integration.
Recently, Li Feng, a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, worked with Zhang Xianen, a researcher at the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to establish a universal strategy of biomineralization in protein cages, that is, to package a pre-synthetic inorganic nanoparticle core in the inner cavity of viral nanoparticles, and then to seed the core, and to control the growth thickness of finely regulated homogeneous or heterogeneous nano-outer layers.
the strategy was successfully applied to mineralize a series of AumNP and Au Ag nuclear shell-type heteroglytic nanoparticles with a particle size (-10 nm) in wild SV40 virus nanoparticles (Figure).
this strategy overcomes the important limitations of the traditional method of direct mineralization in protein cages, which cause protein cage destruction under harsh conditions of seed generation, and greatly enriches the variety of biometric seed materials.
the virus nanoparticles-precious metal hybrid nanostructures constructed by the Institute can be used to develop multi-functional nano-devices.
the findings were published in Nano Research.
Wenjing, a doctoral student at Wuhan Virus Institute, was the first author of the paper.
work is funded by the national natural science fund and the Chinese Academy of Sciences key deployment projects.
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