Self-assembly and regulation of protein cages from pre-organised coiled-coil modules

Nat Commun. 2021 Feb 11;12(1):939. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21184-6.

Abstract

Coiled-coil protein origami (CCPO) is a modular strategy for the de novo design of polypeptide nanostructures. CCPO folds are defined by the sequential order of concatenated orthogonal coiled-coil (CC) dimer-forming peptides, where a single-chain protein is programmed to fold into a polyhedral cage. Self-assembly of CC-based nanostructures from several chains, similarly as in DNA nanotechnology, could facilitate the design of more complex assemblies and the introduction of functionalities. Here, we show the design of a de novo triangular bipyramid fold comprising 18 CC-forming segments and define the strategy for the two-chain self-assembly of the bipyramidal cage from asymmetric and pseudo-symmetric pre-organised structural modules. In addition, by introducing a protease cleavage site and masking the interfacial CC-forming segments in the two-chain bipyramidal cage, we devise a proteolysis-mediated conformational switch. This strategy could be extended to other modular protein folds, facilitating the construction of dynamic multi-chain CC-based complexes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • DNA / chemistry
  • Models, Molecular
  • Nanostructures / chemistry
  • Nanotechnology
  • Peptides / chemistry
  • Protein Conformation
  • Protein Domains*
  • Protein Engineering
  • Protein Folding*
  • Protein Multimerization*
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Proteins / genetics

Substances

  • Peptides
  • Proteins
  • DNA