The C-terminal peptide of Aquifex aeolicus riboflavin synthase directs encapsulation of native and foreign guests by a cage-forming lumazine synthase

Preparing recombinant "Split AEP" for protein labeling

A variant originated from Oldenlandia affinis asparaginyl ligase, OaAEP1-C247A, has emerged as an ideal tool for protein labeling. However, its preparation was laborious and time-consuming. It is recombinantly produced as a zymogen, requiring acid activation and four chromatographic steps; despite these extensive steps, the catalytically active enzyme exhibited only moderate purity. Here, we report a novel preparation protocol, in which the cap and catalytically active core domains are produced as separate entities. The active enzyme can be obtained in two chromatographic steps, immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) and size exclusion chromatography (SEC), with no acid activation required, thereby shortening the purification procedure from at least 2 days to less than 6 h. In addition to the original C247A mutation which enhanced reaction with various amino nucleophiles, an extra D29E mutation was introduced to prevent self-cleavage, which led to noticeable improvements in homogeneity and activity of the enzyme. Indeed, the resulting "split AEP" (i.e., core domain of OaAEP1-D29E/C247A) exhibited improved catalytic efficiency constant (kcat/KM) that was found to be ∼3-fold higher than that of the original acid-activated counterpart (OaAEP1-C247A). Furthermore, we described a protein labeling protocol that couples the enzymatic reaction with an irreversible chemical transformation, thereby enabling high conversion of labeled protein with a lowered amount of reagent. Precisely, an alternative Asn-Cys-Leu (NCL) recognition sequence was used for substrate recognition. As the byproduct contains an N-terminal cysteine, it can be transformed into an inert 1,2 aminothiol motif by reacting with formylphenyl boronic acid (FPBA). Finally, the opportunities and challenges associated with the use of asparaginyl ligase are discussed.

Complementary charge-driven encapsulation of functional protein by engineered protein cages in cellulo

Charge-driven inclusion complex formation in live cells was examined using a degradation-prone fluorescent protein and a series of protein cages. The results show that sufficiently strong host-guest ionic interaction and an intact shell-like structure are crucial for the protective guest encapsulation.

Nanoparticle vaccine based on the envelope protein domain III of Japanese encephalitis virus elicits robust protective immune responses in mice

Aim: To develop a vaccine candidate for Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), for which an effective and safe vaccine is urgently needed. Materials & methods: A vaccine candidate based on domain III of the JEV envelope protein and lumazine synthase (EDIII-LS) was prepared by coupling multivalent ED III to a self-assembling nanoparticle of LS through genetic fusion and self-assembly. Results: High enrichment of ED III was achieved based on the self-assembly of an EDIII-LS polymer. EDIII-LS strongly promoted dendritic cells' internalization and presentation compared with ED III monomer. The cellular and humoral immune responses provoked by EDIII-LS were remarkably higher than those caused by ED III in mice, and conferred complete protection against JEV challenge. Conclusion: The study of ED III-based nanoparticles suggests an effective approach against JEV.

Protein Cages: From Fundamentals to Advanced Applications

Proteins that self-assemble into polyhedral shell-like structures are useful molecular containers both in nature and in the laboratory. Here we review efforts to repurpose diverse protein cages, including viral capsids, ferritins, bacterial microcompartments, and designed capsules, as vaccines, drug delivery vehicles, targeted imaging agents, nanoreactors, templates for controlled materials synthesis, building blocks for higher-order architectures, and more. A deep understanding of the principles underlying the construction, function, and evolution of natural systems has been key to tailoring selective cargo encapsulation and interactions with both biological systems and synthetic materials through protein engineering and directed evolution. The ability to adapt and design increasingly sophisticated capsid structures and functions stands to benefit the fields of catalysis, materials science, and medicine.

Polyelectrolyte Encapsulation and Confinement within Protein Cage-Inspired Nanocompartments

Protein cages are nanocompartments with a well-defined structure and monodisperse size. They are composed of several individual subunits and can be categorized as viral and non-viral protein cages. Native viral cages often exhibit a cationic interior, which binds the anionic nucleic acid genome through electrostatic interactions leading to efficient encapsulation. Non-viral cages can carry various cargo, ranging from small molecules to inorganic nanoparticles. Both cage types can be functionalized at targeted locations through genetic engineering or chemical modification to entrap materials through interactions that are inaccessible to wild-type cages. Moreover, the limited number of constitutional subunits ease the modification efforts, because a single modification on the subunit can lead to multiple functional sites on the cage surface. Increasing efforts have also been dedicated to the assembly of protein cage-mimicking structures or templated protein coatings. This review focuses on native and modified protein cages that have been used to encapsulate and package polyelectrolyte cargos and on the electrostatic interactions that are the driving force for the assembly of such structures. Selective encapsulation can protect the payload from the surroundings, shield the potential toxicity or even enhance the intended performance of the payload, which is appealing in drug or gene delivery and imaging.

Second career of a biosynthetic enzyme: Lumazine synthase as a virus-like nanoparticle in vaccine development

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Virus-like nano-particles can be successfully applied in vaccine development.

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Scaffolds can be cage-forming highly symmetric biological macromolecules, like lumazine synthase, ferritin or self-assembling nanoparticles created computationally ab initio.

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Symmetrical nano-particle scaffolds can display structurally ordered immunogen arrays which lead to favorable reaction with B cell receptors.

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Animal-, preclinical- and clinical studies are at present pointing to the usefulness of nanoparticle antigens in creating immune responses against HIV, Borrelia, Influenza.

Naturally occurring and computationally ab initio designed protein cages can now be considered as extremely suitable materials for new developments in nanotechnology. Via self-assembly from single identical or non-identical protomers large oligomeric particles can be formed. Virus-like particles have today found a number of quite successful applications in the development of new vaccines. Complex chimeric nanoparticles can serve as suitable platforms for the presentation of natural or designed antigens to the immune system of the host. The scaffolds can be cage forming highly symmetric biological macromolecules like lumazine synthase or symmetric self-assembling virus-like particles generated by computational ab initio design. Symmetric nanoparticle carriers display a structurally ordered array of immunogens. This feature can lead to a more favorable interaction with B-cell receptors, in comparison to the administration of single recombinant immunogens. Several pre-clinical animal studies and clinical studies have recently pointed out the efficiency of nanoparticle antigens produced recombinantly in creating strong immune responses against infectious diseases like HIV, Malaria, Borrelia, Influenza.

Enzyme encapsulation by protein cages

Protein cages are hollow protein shells with a nanometric cavity that can be filled with useful materials. The encapsulating nature of the cages means that they are particularly attractive for loading with biological macromolecules, affording the guests protection in conditions where they may be degraded. Given the importance of proteins in both industrial and all cellular processes, encapsulation of functional protein cargoes, particularly enzymes, are of high interest both for in vivo diagnostic and therapeutic use as well as for ex vivo applications. Increasing knowledge of protein cage structures at high resolution along with recent advances in producing artificial protein cages means that they can now be designed with various attachment chemistries on their internal surfaces - a useful tool for cargo capture. Here we review the different available attachment strategies that have recently been successfully demonstrated for enzyme encapsulation in protein cages and consider their future potential.

Virus-Inspired Function in Engineered Protein Cages

The structural and functional diversity of proteins combined with their genetic programmability has made them indispensable modern materials. Well-defined, hollow protein capsules have proven to be particularly useful due to their ability to compartmentalize macromolecules and chemical processes. To this end, viral capsids are common scaffolds and have been successfully repurposed to produce a suite of practical protein-based nanotechnologies. Recently, the recapitulation of viromimetic function in protein cages of nonviral origin has emerged as a strategy to both complement physical studies of natural viruses and produce useful scaffolds for diverse applications. In this perspective, we review recent progress toward generation of virus-like behavior in nonviral protein cages through rational engineering and directed evolution. These artificial systems can aid our understanding of the emergence of viruses from existing cellular components, as well as provide alternative approaches to tackle current problems, and open up new opportunities, in medicine and biotechnology.

Peptide-directed encapsulation of inorganic nanoparticles into protein containers

Biomolecules can be combined with inorganic compounds to unite biological features with the chemical and physical properties of abiotic materials. In particular, protein containers, with their inherent ability to encapsulate cargo molecules, are perfect platforms for the generation of multifunctional assemblies. However, encapsulation of foreign cargo is immensely challenging due to the lack of specific interactions between cargo and container. Here, we demonstrate that the highly specific cargo-loading mechanism of the bacterial nanocompartment encapsulin can be employed for encapsulation of artificial cargo like inorganic nanoparticles. For this purpose, container-filling gold nanoparticles were decorated with a small number of encapsulin cargo-loading peptides. By lock-and-key interaction between the peptides and the peptide-binding pockets on the inner container surface, the nanoparticles are encapsulated into encapsulin with extremely high efficiency. Most notably, peptide binding is independent from external factors such as ionic strength. Cargo-loading peptides may serve as generally applicable tool for efficient and specific encapsulation of cargo molecules into a proteinaceous compartment.

Fabrication of Nanoreaction Clusters with Dual-Functionalized Protein Cage Nanobuilding Blocks

Fabrication of functional nanostructures is a prominent issue in nanotechnology, because they often exhibit unique properties that are different from the individual building blocks. Protein cage nanoparticles are attractive nanobuilding blocks for constructing nanostructures due to their well-defined symmetric spherical structures, polyvalent nature, and functional plasticity. Here, a lumazine synthase protein cage nanoparticle is genetically modified to be used as a template to generate functional nanobuilding blocks and covalently display enzymes (β-lactamase) and protein ligands (FKBP12/FRB) on its surface, making dual-functional nanobuilding blocks. Nanoreaction clusters are subsequently created by ligand-mediated alternate deposition of two complementary building blocks using layer-by-layer (LbL) assemblies. 3D nanoreaction clusters provide enhanced enzymatic activity compared with monolayered building block arrays. The approaches described here may provide new opportunities for fabricating functional nanostructures and nanoreaction clusters, leading to the development of new protein nanoparticle-based nanostructured biosensor devices.

Diversification of Protein Cage Structure Using Circularly Permuted Subunits

Self-assembling protein cages are useful as nanoscale molecular containers for diverse applications in biotechnology and medicine. To expand the utility of such systems, there is considerable interest in customizing the structures of natural cage-forming proteins and designing new ones. Here we report that a circularly permuted variant of lumazine synthase, a cage-forming enzyme from Aquifex aeolicus (AaLS) affords versatile building blocks for the construction of nanocompartments that can be easily produced, tailored, and diversified. The topologically altered protein, cpAaLS, self-assembles into spherical and tubular cage structures with morphologies that can be controlled by the length of the linker connecting the native termini. Moreover, cpAaLS proteins integrate into wild-type and other engineered AaLS assemblies by coproduction in Escherichia coli to form patchwork cages. This coassembly strategy enables encapsulation of guest proteins in the lumen, modification of the exterior through genetic fusion, and tuning of the size and electrostatics of the compartments. This addition to the family of AaLS cages broadens the scope of this system for further applications and highlights the utility of circular permutation as a potentially general strategy for tailoring the properties of cage-forming proteins.

Tailoring lumazine synthase assemblies for bionanotechnology

The cage-forming protein lumazine synthase is readily modified, evolved and assembled with other components.

Enzyme Encapsulation in an Engineered Lumazine Synthase Protein Cage

The packaging of active enzymes in protein cages is a powerful strategy to control catalytic activity. Using a positively supercharged variant of green fluorescent protein, GFP(+36), as a genetically programmable tag, enzymes can be rapidly and quantitatively loaded into an engineered variant of the Aquifex aeolicus cage-forming protein lumazine synthase (AaLS-13) that possesses a negatively charged lumen. The cargo is spontaneously localized within AaLS-13 cages by simply mixing the components in aqueous solution. This chapter describes a detailed protocol for the preparation of AaLS-13 cages and GFP(+36)-enzyme fusions, as well as characterization of the inclusion complexes. Suitable conditions for encapsulation and enzyme kinetic assays are also discussed.

Encapsulation and Controlled Release of Protein Guests by the Bacillus subtilis Lumazine Synthase Capsid

In Bacillus subtilis, the 60-subunit dodecahedral capsid formed by lumazine synthase (BsLS) acts as a container for trimeric riboflavin synthase (BsRS). To test whether the C-terminal sequence of BsRS is responsible for its encapsulation by BsLS, the green fluorescent protein (GFP) was fused to either the last 11 or the last 32 amino acids of BsRS, yielding variant GFP11 or GFP32, respectively. After purification, BsLS capsids that had been co-produced in bacteria with GFP11 and GFP32 are 15- and 6-fold more fluorescent, respectively, than BsLS co-produced with GFP lacking any BsRS fragment, indicating complex formation. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay experiments confirm that GFP11 is localized within the BsLS capsid. In addition, fusing the last 11 amino acids of BsRS to the C-terminus of the Abrin A chain also led to its encapsulation by BsLS at a level similar to that of GFP11. Together, these results demonstrate that the C-terminal tail of BsRS can act as an encapsulation tag capable of targeting other proteins to the BsLS capsid interior. As with the natural BsLS-BsRS complex, mild changes in pH and buffer identity trigger dissociation of the GFP11 guest, accompanied by a substantial expansion of the BsLS capsid. This system for protein encapsulation and release provides a novel tool for bionanotechnology.

Enzyme Encapsulation by a Ferritin Cage

Ferritins, conserved across all kingdoms of life, are protein nanocages that evolved to mineralize iron. The last several decades have shown that these cages have considerable technological and medical potential owing to their stability and tolerance to modification, as well as their ability to template nanoparticle synthesis and incorporate small molecules. Here we show that it is possible to encapsulate proteins in a ferritin cage by exploiting electrostatic interactions with its negatively charged interior. Positively supercharged green fluorescent protein is efficiently taken up by Archaeoglobus fulgidus ferritin in a tunable fashion. Moreover, several enzymes were readily incorporated when genetically tethered to this fluorescent protein. These fusion proteins retained high catalytic activity and showed increased tolerance to proteolysis and heat. Equipping ferritins with enzymatic activity paves the way for many new nanotechnological and pharmacological applications.