High order assembly of multiple protein cages with homogeneous sizes and shapes <i>via</i> limited cage surface engineering

Abstract

cage fabrication by careful subunit manipulation. Ferritin cages with limitedly exposed zippers are assembled around a core ferritin with fully exposed opposing zippers, generating homogeneous high order structures, whereas two fully exposed ferritins are assembled into heterogeneous cage aggregates. Diverse fully exposed core cages are prepared by varying the zipper-ferritin fusion geometries and even by using larger cage structures. With these core cages and the anisotropic ferritin, a range of high order cage assemblies with diverse ferritin valencies (3 to over 12) and sizes (over 40 nm) are created. Cell surface binding and internalization of cage structures are greatly varied by assembly sizes, where high order ferritins are clearly more effective than monomeric ferritin.