Rubul Mout

Biological materials such as sub-cellular organelles result from the exquisite organization of molecules, imparting specific functions to the organelles. However, building such well-organized complex architectures synthetically with intended functions is challenging. We used a co-engineering approach to fabricate self-assembled ‘organelle-like’ spherical superstructures between recombinant proteins and nanoparticles. These structures exhibited multi-layered hierarchical organization of the components, extending to a length scale of few hundred nanometers. Furthermore, the components of the hierarchical structures can be easily reorganized through modulating environmental triggers such as electrolyte concentration, providing opportunities for building superstructures with desired molecular organization. The resultant superstructures acted as transport vehicles for assembled proteins and delivered them directly into the cytosol of a cell. Subsequently, we used this methodology to deliver CRISPR-Cas9 proteins for editing genes in mammalian cells. The exquisite control over the molecular organization of building blocks in our approach provides a new tool to create materials for different applications depending on their organizations.