Within the materials science community, proteins with cage-like architectures are being developed as versatile nanoscale platforms for use in protein nanotechnology. Much effort has been focused on the functionalization of protein cages with biological and non-biological moieties to bring about new properties of not only individual protein cages, but collective bulk-scale assemblies of protein cages. In this review, we report on the current understanding of protein cage assembly, both of the cages themselves from individual subunits, and the assembly of the individual protein cages into higher order structures. We start by discussing the key properties of natural protein cages (for example: size, shape and structure) followed by a review of some of the mechanisms of protein cage assembly and the factors that influence it. We then explore the current approaches for functionalizing protein cages, on the interior or exterior surfaces of the capsids. Lastly, we explore the emerging area of higher order assemblies created from individual protein cages and their potential for new and exciting collective properties.

中文翻译：

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跨多个长度尺度的蛋白质笼组装

在材料科学界，具有笼状结构的蛋白质正在被开发为用于蛋白质纳米技术的多功能纳米级平台。许多努力都集中在具有生物和非生物部分的蛋白质笼的功能化上，以不仅为单个蛋白质笼带来新特性，而且为蛋白质笼的集体大规模组装带来新特性。在这篇综述中，我们报告了目前对蛋白质笼组装的理解，蛋白质笼本身来自各个亚基，以及各个蛋白质笼组装成更高阶的结构。我们首先讨论天然蛋白质笼的关键特性（例如：大小、形状和结构），然后回顾蛋白质笼组装的一些机制及其影响因素。然后，我们探索当前在衣壳的内表面或外表面上使蛋白质笼功能化的方法。最后，我们探索了由单个蛋白质笼创建的高阶组装的新兴领域及其新的和令人兴奋的集体特性的潜力。