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Artificial Protein Cage with Unusual Geometry and Regularly Embedded Gold Nanoparticles
journal contribution
posted on 2022-03-07, 14:35 authored by Karolina Majsterkiewicz, Artur P. Biela, Sourav Maity, Mohit Sharma, Bernard M. A. G. Piette, Agnieszka Kowalczyk, Szymon Gaweł, Soumyananda Chakraborti, Wouter H. Roos, Jonathan G. HeddleArtificial protein
cages have great potential in a number of areas
including cargo capture and delivery and as artificial vaccines. Here,
we investigate an artificial protein cage whose assembly is triggered
by gold nanoparticles. Using biochemical and biophysical methods we
were able to determine both the mechanical properties and the gross
compositional features of the cage which, combined with mathematical
models and biophysical data, allowed the structure of the cage to
be predicted. The accuracy of the overall geometrical prediction was
confirmed by the cryo-EM structure determined to sub-5 Å resolution.
This showed the cage to be nonregular but similar to a dodecahedron,
being constructed from 12 11-membered rings. Surprisingly, the structure
revealed that the cage also contained a single, small gold nanoparticle
at each 3-fold axis meaning that each cage acts as a synthetic framework
for regular arrangement of 20 gold nanoparticles in a three-dimensional
lattice.
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overall geometrical predictiongross compositional featuresfold axis meaning5 å resolutionsmall gold nanoparticlecage also contained20 gold nanoparticlesem structure determinedartificial protein cagegold nanoparticlesartificial vaccinescage actsusing biochemicalunusual geometrysynthetic frameworkstructure revealedregular arrangementmembered ringsmechanical propertiesmathematical modelsgreat potentialdimensional latticebiophysical methodsbiophysical data12 11