Artificial Protein Cage with Unusual Geometry and Regularly Embedded Gold Nanoparticles

Majsterkiewicz, Karolina; Biela, Artur P.; Maity, Sourav; Sharma, Mohit; Piette, Bernard M.A.G.; Kowalczyk, Agnieszka; Gaweł, Szymon; Chakraborti, Soumyananda; Roos, Wouter H.; Heddle, Jonathan G.

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04222

Artificial Protein Cage with Unusual Geometry and Regularly Embedded Gold Nanoparticles

Majsterkiewicz, Karolina; Biela, Artur P.; Maity, Sourav; Sharma, Mohit; Piette, Bernard M.A.G.; Kowalczyk, Agnieszka; Gaweł, Szymon; Chakraborti, Soumyananda; Roos, Wouter H.; Heddle, Jonathan G.

Authors

Karolina Majsterkiewicz

Artur P. Biela

Sourav Maity

Mohit Sharma

Professor Bernard Piette b.m.a.g.piette@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Agnieszka Kowalczyk

Szymon Gaweł

Soumyananda Chakraborti

Wouter H. Roos

Jonathan G. Heddle

Abstract

Artificial 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.

Citation

Majsterkiewicz, K., Biela, A. P., Maity, S., Sharma, M., Piette, B. M., Kowalczyk, A., …Heddle, J. G. (2022). Artificial Protein Cage with Unusual Geometry and Regularly Embedded Gold Nanoparticles. Nano Letters, 22(8), 3187-3195. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04222

Journal Article Type	Article
Online Publication Date	Mar 7, 2022
Publication Date	Apr 27, 2022
Deposit Date	May 27, 2022
Publicly Available Date	May 27, 2022
Journal	Nano Letters
Print ISSN	1530-6984
Electronic ISSN	1530-6992
Publisher	American Chemical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	22
Issue	8
Pages	3187-3195
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c04222