Nature Communications (Mar 2017)

Structure and assembly of scalable porous protein cages

  • Eita Sasaki,
  • Daniel Böhringer,
  • Michiel van de Waterbeemd,
  • Marc Leibundgut,
  • Reinhard Zschoche,
  • Albert J. R. Heck,
  • Nenad Ban,
  • Donald Hilvert

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14663
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Self-assembling proteins that form capsid-like structures act as molecular containers for diverse cargoes. Here, the authors solve the cryo-EM structures of lumazine synthase shells, and show that supercharged mutants form expanded assemblies, indicating that electrostatics can be exploited to engineer cage architecture.