Potato Virus X Inactivation and Characterization.

The nucleoprotein components of plant viruses self-assemble into monodisperse, nanoscale structures with a high degree of symmetry and polyvalency. Of particular interest are the filamentous plant viruses which provide uniform high aspect ratio nanostructures-such structures remain challenging to obtain using purely synthetic approaches. Potato virus X (PVX) has drawn interest by the materials science community because of its filamentous structure measuring 515 × 13 nm; and both genetic engineering and chemical conjugation methods have been reported to impart new functionalities and develop PVX-based nanomaterials for applications in the health and materials sector. Toward environmentally safe materials-i.e., materials that are not infectious toward crops, such as potato, we reported methods to inactivate PVX. In this chapter, we describe the three methods to inactivate PVX and render it non-infectious toward plants, while maintaining structure and function.