Wrapping and Blocking of Influenza A Viruses by Sialylated 2D Nanoplatforms

Inhibition of respiratory viruses is one of the most urgent topics as underlined by different pandemics in the last two decades. This impels the development of new materials for binding and incapacitation of the viruses. In this work, we have demonstrated that an optimal deployment of influenza A virus (IAV) targeting ligand sialic acid (SA) on a flexible 2D platform enables its binding and wrapping around IAV particles. A series of 2D sialylated platforms consisting graphene and polyglycerol are prepared with different degrees of SA functionalization around 10%, 30%, and 90% named as G-PG-SA(L), G-PG-SA(M), and G-PG-SA(H,) respectively. The cryo-electron tomography (Cryo-ET) analysis has proved wrapping of IAV particles by G-PG-SA(M). A confocal-based colocalization assay established for these materials has offered the comparison of binding potential of sialylated and non-sialylated nanoplatforms for IAV. With this method, we have estimated the binding potential of the G-PG-SA(M) and G-PG-SA(H) sheets for IAV particles around 50 and 20 times higher than the control sheets, respectively, whereas the low functionalized G-PG-SA(L) have not shown any significant colocalization value. Moreover, optimized G-PG-SA(M) exhibits high potency to block IAV from binding with the MDCK cells.

Automated summary

The study demonstrated that optimal deployment of sialic acid targeting ligands on a flexible 2D platform allows for binding and wrapping of influenza A virus (IAV) particles. Different degrees of sialic acid functionalized 2D platforms were compared for their binding potential, with higher levels of functionalization showing increased binding potential for IAV.