Chemical modulation of M13 bacteriophage and its functional opportunities for nanomedicine

Woo-Jae Chung,1 Doe-Young Lee,1 So Young Yoo2,3 1College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Republic of Korea; 2BIO-IT Foundry Technology Institute, Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea; 3Research Institute for Convergence of Biomedical Science and Technology, Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital, Yangsan, Republic of Korea Abstract: M13 bacteriophage (phage) has emerged as an attractive bionanomaterial owing to its genetically tunable surface chemistry and its potential to self-assemble into hierarchical structures. Furthermore, because of its unique nanoscopic structure, phage has been proposed as a model system in soft condensed physics and as a biomimetic building block for structured functional materials. Genetic engineering of phage provides great opportunities to develop novel nanomaterials with functional surface peptide motifs; however, this biological approach is generally limited to peptides containing the 20 natural amino acids. To extend the scope of phage applications, strategies involving chemical modification have been employed to incorporate a wider range of functional groups, including synthetic chemical compounds. In this review, we introduce the design of chemoselective phage functionalization and discuss how such a strategy is combined with genetic engineering for a variety of medical applications, as reported in recent literature. Keywords: M13 bacteriophage, chemoselective modification, functionalization, biomimetic structure, bionanomateria