Methods and major results
Herein, protein cages conceived as enzymatic nanoreactors were designed
and produced by using virus-like nanoparticles (VLPs) from Brome Mosaic
Virus (BMV) and containing the catalytic activity of glucose oxidase
enzyme (GOx). The GOx enzyme was encapsulated into the BMV capsid
(VLP-GOx), and the resulting enzymatic nanoreactors were coated with
human serum albumin (VLP-GOx@HSA) for breast tumor cell targeting. The
effect of the synthesized GOx nanoreactors on breast tumor cell lines
was studied in vitro . Both nanoreactor preparations VLP-GOx and
VLP-GOx@HSA showed to be highly cytotoxic for breast tumor cell
cultures. Cytotoxicity for human embryonic kidney cells was also found.
The monitoring of nanoreactor treatment on triple-negative breast cancer
cells showed an evident production of oxygen by the catalase antioxidant
enzyme induced by the high production of hydrogen peroxide from GOx
activity.