Stability of M13 Phage in Organic Solvents

Pouya Moghimian,Peter A Van Aken,Vesna Srot,Sandra J Facey,Benoit P Pichon

doi:10.4236/jbnb.2016.72009

Abstract

The effect of different types of organic solvents on the structural integrity of M13 phages has been directly visualized by transmission and scanning electron microscopy. The exposure of M13 phages to apolar hexane had no effect on the structure of the phages for up to 8 h. In contrast, phages showed ~10-fold contraction into rod-like I-forms and to flattened spheroids with ~12 nm diameter upon exposure to polar organic solvents. We show that this finding can be beneficial for the macromolecular self-assembly and in broader aspects, to enhance the spatial arrangement of desired inorganic nanoparticles in the rapidly developing field of virotronics.

Highlights

M13 phages are being widely used in the novel virus-based technology and as model systems to study liquid crystal textures due to their high aspect ratio and monodispersity [1] [2]
Thereafter, a 5 μl droplet of the mixture was loaded for 5 min onto Quantifoil® (Quantifoil Micro Tools GmbH) transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grids covered by a carbon support film
BF-TEM observations of hexane-treated M13 phages revealed that the virions retained their structure, flexibility and original dimensions (see Figure 1(c), Figure 1(d))

Summary

Introduction

M13 phages are being widely used in the novel virus-based technology (i.e. virotronics) and as model systems to study liquid crystal textures due to their high aspect ratio and monodispersity [1] [2]. Several studies have been devoted to stress the key role of organic solvents on protein folding and inactivation of viruses [4] [5], yet it has been shown that different kinds of filamentous viruses, even from the same class, show different structural integrity in an organic solvent [6]. The M13 phage is an 880 nm long and 6.6 nm wide semi-flexible virus consisting of ~2700 copies of the major coat protein (pVIII) surrounding a single-stranded DNA [8]. They are among the phages being successfully used in templating inorganic nanoparticles and in the development of optical biosensors and battery devices [9]-[11].

Methods

Results

Conclusion