Nanomanufacturing of Tobacco Mosaic Virus-Based Spherical Biomaterials Using a Continuous Flow Method

Nanomanufacturing of nanoparticles is critical for potential translation and commercialization. Continuous flow devices can alleviate this need through unceasing production of nanoparticles. Here we demonstrate the scaled-up production of spherical nanoparticles functionalized with biomedical cargos from the rod-shaped plant virus tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) using a mesofluidic, continued flow method. Production yields were increased 30-fold comparing the mesofluidic device versus batch methods. Finally, we produced MRI contrast agents of select sizes, with per particle relaxivity reaching 979,218 mM-1 s-1 at 60 MHz. These TMV-based spherical nanoparticle MRI contrast agents are in the top echelon of relaxivity per nanoparticle.