Metal Ion‐Induced Self‐Assembly of a Multi‐Responsive Block Copolypeptide into Well‐Defined Nanocapsules |
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| Authors: | Mark B van Eldijk Lise Schoonen Jeroen J L M Cornelissen Roeland J M Nolte Jan C M van Hest |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, AJ, Nijmegen, The Netherlands;2. Department of Biomolecular Nanotechnology, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, AE Enschede, The Netherlands |
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| Abstract: | Protein cages are an interesting class of biomaterials with potential applications in bionanotechnology. Therefore, substantial effort is spent on the development of capsule‐forming designer polypeptides with a tailor‐made assembly profile. The expanded assembly profile of a triblock copolypeptide consisting of a metal ion chelating hexahistidine‐tag, a stimulus‐responsive elastin‐like polypeptide block, and a pH‐responsive morphology‐controlling viral capsid protein is presented. The self‐assembly of this multi‐responsive protein‐based block copolymer is triggered by the addition of divalent metal ions. This assembly process yields monodisperse nanocapsules with a 20 nm diameter composed of 60 polypeptides. The well‐defined nanoparticles are the result of the emergent properties of all the blocks of the polypeptide. These results demonstrate the feasibility of hexahistidine‐tags to function as supramolecular cross‐linkers. Furthermore, their potential for the metal ion‐mediated encapsulation of hexahistidine‐tagged proteins is shown. |
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| Keywords: | block copolypeptides elastin‐like polypeptides protein nanocapsules self‐assembly virus‐like particles |
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