Compartmentalization is an import organizational feature of life, which allows distinct intracellular chemical environment to be maintained and exploited in order to optimize intracellular biochemical processes. Prokaryotes lack the intracellular organelles found in Eukaryotes. However, some bacteria have recently been shown to utilize protein nanocompartments to compartmentalize specific enzymes. These systems consist of a shell-forming protein (encapsulin; Enc) which assembles into a hollow icosahedral shell. The interior of the Enc nanocompartments is lined with conversed binding sites for short polypeptide tags encoded at the C-terminus of the 'cargo' protein.
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