Engineered Protein Cages for Nanomaterials Synthesis.

摘要

Inorganic mineral formation in biological systems is often characterized by materials showing a high degree of control over mineral phase, orientation, and morphology. In particular, the iron storage protein ferritin controls the oxidation of Fe(II) and its subsequent hydrolytic polymerization to produce homogeneously sized particles of a ferric oxyhydroxide. We have developed a model for this protein catalyzed oxidative mineralization in ferritin and applied it to the engineering of other protein cage architectures for the synthesis of other, more technologically interesting iron oxides.