Fiscal Year 2018, Tokyo Institute of Technology ASPIRE League Research Grant
Selected Research Project for Type 1 in FY2018
NamePrincipal
Researcher

School atTokyo Tech
Position
HKUST
KAIST

Co-researchers

Takafumi Ueno
School of Life Science and TechnologyProfessor
ZHU Guang, Professor
Division of Life Science
Yoon Sung Nam, Associate Professor
Department of Materials Science & Engineering,
Sierin LIM, Associate Professor

NTU

School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering,
Kelin Xia, Assistant Professor
School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences,

Tsinghua
Subject

Diannan Lu, Associate Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering

Functional Design of Protein Cage for Sustainable Bio-nanomaterial

Summary of the research projectProtein assemblies have recently become recognized as potential molecular scaffolds forapplications in materials science and bio-nanotechnology. Efforts to design protein assemblies
for construction of protein-based hybrid materials with metal ions, metal complexes, andnanomaterials now indicate a growing field with a common aim of providing novel functions
and mimicking natural functions. However, the important roles of protein assemblies insustainable materials science have not been systematically investigated and established.
Protein cage is one of the most useful scaffolds among protein assemblies with nano-sized
structures, such as tube, wire, and two-dimensional array, because the cage has a various
range of diameter from several to hundreds nm, and can be conjugated with natural andsynthetic functional molecules on both the inside and outside surfaces. Many researchersreported functionalization of protein cages for the broad range of applications andimplications focusing on the medical and biotechnology sectors. However, there is a limitation
on development of drug delivery and imaging reagent due to low stability to conjugate various
composites involving inorganic materials. Thus, highly robust protein cages are required toencapsulate and display inorganic materials with bionano functions, such as drug delivery
and imaging.
We therefore propose to design and construct new types of sustainable protein cages
conjugated with inorganic compounds for medical and bionano-applications. Ferritin (Fr),which plays the role of an iron storage protein, is known to accommodate various metal
ions/complexes and is suitable for catalytic reactions conducted in an aqueous medium. Froma protein engineering point of view, the effective preparation, yield, and stability make the Frcage suitable for use as molecular templates to accumulate metal ions, complexes, andnanoparticles for construction of sustainable biomaterials to deliver metal drug and metal
imaging reagents, such as gold and silver nanoparticles, and gadolinium complexes, into
living cells. The accumulation of the inorganic compounds with desired size, number andposition in the Fr cage is required for the accurate functions promoted in living cell. Thus,in the research project, we pursue the following objectives to establish the new research fieldof sustainable bio-nanomaterials :(1) Computational design of the Fr cage(2) Incorporation and preparation of inorganic materials in the Fr cage and surface
modification of the composite(3) Evaluation of the functions toward medicinal and biomaterial applications