Biological Containers: Protein Cages as Multifunctional Nanoplatforms
Abstract
Materials scientists increasingly draw inspiration from the study of how biological systems fabricate materials under mild synthetic conditions by using self‐assembled macromolecular templates. Containerlike protein architectures such as viral capsids and ferritin are examples of such biological templates. These protein cages have three distinct interfaces that can be synthetically exploited: the interior, the exterior, and the interface between subunits. The subunits that comprise the building blocks of these structures can be modified both chemically and genetically in order to impart designed functionality to different surfaces of the cage. Therefore, the cages possess a great deal of synthetic flexibility, which allows for the introduction of multifunctionality in a single cage. In addition, hierarchical assembly of the functionalized cages paves the way for development of a new class of materials with a wide range of applications from electronics to biomedicine.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Apr 16, 2007
- Source ID
- 10.1002/adma.200601168
Entities
People
- E. Gillitzer
- L. O. Liepold
- M. Flenniken
- M. T. Klem
- Masaki Uchida
- Matthew A. Young
- Monica Allen
- P. Suci
- T. Douglas
- Z. Varpness
Organizations
- Istituto Superiore di Sanità
- National Institutes of Health
- National Science Foundation
- Office of Naval Research