Genetically Programmed In Vivo Packaging of Protein Cargo and Its Controlled Release from Bacteriophage P22

Abstract

Packed and ready to go: A scaffold protein (SP) aids the assembly of Salmonella typhimuriam bacteriophage P22 into a capsid, with encapsulation of the SP. This natural process was exploited by using an engineered molecular system to fuse a fluorescent protein cargo (green in the picture) to a portion of the SP (yellow), which templated accurate spontaneous assembly. Heating of the capsids and treatment with thrombin released the SP but not the cargo.