Biofabrication of functional protein nanoparticles through simple His-tag engineering
Hèctor López‐Laguna, Julieta M. Sánchez, José Vicente Carratalá, Mauricio Rojas-Peña, Laura Sánchez‐García, Eloi Parladé, Alejandro Sánchez‐Chardi, Eric Voltà‐Durán, Naroa Serna, Olivia Cano‐Garrido, Sandra S. Flores, Neus Ferrer‐Miralles, Verónica Nolan, Ario de Marco, Nerea Roher, Ugutz Unzueta, Esther Vázquez, Antonio Villaverde
Abstract
ions and His residues in His-tagged proteins. This approach results in a spontaneous and reproducible protein assembly as nanoscale oligomers that keep the original functionalities of the protein building blocks. The assembly of these materials is not linked to particular polypeptide features, and it is based on an environmentally friendly and sustainable approach. The resulting nanoparticles, with dimensions ranging between 10 and 15 nm, are regular in size, are architecturally stable, are fully functional, and serve as intermediates in a more complex assembly process, resulting in the formation of microscale protein materials. Since most of the recombinant proteins produced by biochemical and biotechnological industries and intended for biomedical research are His-tagged, the green biofabrication procedure proposed here can be straightforwardly applied to a huge spectrum of protein species for their conversion into their respective nanostructured formats.