Team:ZJU-China
Thankfully, magnetosomes taking advantage of its biocompatibility and the ability to be modified, can be designed to target tumor cells specifically.
First, cell membrane of magnetotactic bacteria are invaginated and small vesicles are formed, which becomes the magnetosome membrane.
Magnetosomes are formed by magnetotactic bacterium through biomineralization.
As a kind of biomembrane, sorting and assembly of proteins on the membrane also exist on the magnetosome membrane.
Biomineralization occurs when large amounts of iron are accumulated in magnetosome membrane vesicles, will be used to form magnetite crystals.
The movement of the magnetosomes is along the cytoskeleton and the already formed magnetosomes will assembled into chains instead.
In order to obtain the engineered magnetosomes, we need to transfer the plasmid containing the fusion protein of mamC and ZZ protein into magnetotactic bacterium.
The transgened magnetotactic bacterium will produce ZZ modified magnetosomes.