Nanoparticles and biotemplates with tunable length and methods of manufacturing the same

A method of manufacturing a nanoparticle biotemplate comprising the steps of:

• introducing into an isolated host a nucleic acid sequence comprising SEQ ID NO:
• 1 or a functional equivalent thereof that encodes a Barley stripe mosaic virus coat protein (BSMV-CP), and one or both of:
• (a) an origin of self-assembly (OAS) of a Tobacco mosaic virus operatively linked with the BSMV-CP wherein a portion of the nucleic acid sequence that encodes the OAS comprises SEQ ID NO:
• 11 or a functional equivalent thereof, and
• (b) at least one site-directed mutation on the BSMV-CP that facilitates self-assembly of a BSMV viral-like particle by at least replacing a repulsive interaction between at least-two wild-type BSMV-CP subunits with a neutral or attractive interaction between the correlative at least two BSMV-CP subunits of the encoded BSMV-CP,
• wherein the at least one site-directed mutation on the BSMV-CP is:
• at residue E37Q and comprises SEQ ID NO:
• 7,
• at residue E37R and comprises SEQ ID NO:
• 8,
• at residue E62Q and comprises SEQ ID NO:
• 9,
• at residue D68N and comprises SEQ ID NO:
• 2,
• at residue D70N and comprises SEQ ID NO:
• 3,
• at residue D101N and comprises SEQ ID NO:
• 5,
• at residue D101R and comprises SEQ ID NO:
• 6,
• at residue D101K and comprises SEQ ID NO:
• 4, or
• a combination of site mutations comprising two or more of the foregoing;
• expressing the nucleic acid sequence in a microbial expression system to produce self-assembled BSMV viral-like particles (BSMV VLPs);
• and
• isolating the BSMV VLPs from the microbial expression system.