Searching for M13 bacteriophage with high affinity for nanodiamond particles

Abstract

Nanodiamonds have potential in biomedical uses, as they are non-toxic and exhibit non-blinking fluorescence behavior when they are enriched with nitrogen vacancy centers. In order for them to be useful in biomedical applications, they need to be functionalized. In this experiment, a pIII library of M13 bacteriophage were panned versus 100 nm nanodiamonds enriched with approximately 500 nitrogen vacancy centers to find phage that have an affinity for these nanoparticles. The phage DNA was sequenced and found to have the protein sequence SKMYHTP. At this point, although we have sequences of peptide that bind to nanodiamond, we are unable to determine the affinity or best binders without additional biopanning rounds and testing.