Bioengineering novel floating nanoparticles for protein and drug delivery.

Gas vesicle nanoparticles (GVNPs) are hollow protein nanoparticles produced by Halobacterium sp. NRC-1 which are being engineered for protein delivery. To advance the bioengineering potential of GVNPs, a strain of NRC-1 deleted for the gvpC gene (ΔgvpC) was constructed and a synthetic gene coding for Gaussia princeps luciferase was fused to an abbreviated gvpC gene on an expression plasmid. When introduced into theΔgvpC strain, an active GvpC-luciferase fusion protein bound to GVNPs resulted. These results represent both a technical improvement in the GVNP display system and its expansion for the display of active enzymes.