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The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated the scientific world to intensifyvirus-related studies, aimed at the development of quick and safe ways ofdetecting viruses in human body, studying the virus-antibody and virus-cellinteractions, and designing nanocarriers for targeted antiviral therapies.However, research on dangerous viruses can only be performed in certifiedlaboratories that follow strict safety procedures. Thus, developing deactivatedvirus constructs or safe-to-use virus-like objects, which imitate real virusesand allow performing virus-related studies in any research laboratory,constitutes an important scientific challenge. One of the groups of suchspecies are the so-called virus-like particles (VLPs). Instead of capsids withviral DNA/RNA, VLPs have synthetic cores with real virus proteins attached tothem. We have developed a method for the preparation of VLPs imitating thevirus responsible for the COVID-19 disease: the SARS-CoV-2. The particles haveAu cores surrounded by "coronas" of S1 domains of the virus's Spike protein.Importantly, they are safe to use and specifically interact with SARS-CoV-2antibodies. Moreover, Au cores exhibit localized surface plasmon resonance(LSPR), which makes the synthesized VLPs suitable for biosensing applications.Within our studies, the effect allowed us to visualize the interaction betweenthe VLPs and the antibodies and identify the characteristic vibrationalsignals. What is more, additional functionalization of the particles with afluorescent label revealed their potential in studying specific virus-relatedinteractions. Notably, the universal character of the developed synthesismethod makes it potentially applicable for fabricating VLPs imitating otherlife-threatening viruses.

SARS-CoV-2 Virus-Like Particles with Plasmonic Au Cores and S1-Spike Protein Coronas