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Updated: Jun 30, 2026

Construction of Out-of-Equilibrium Metabolic Networks in Nano- and Micrometer-Sized Vesicles
Published on: April 12, 2024
Encapsulation of semiconducting polymers in vault protein cages
Benny C Ng1, Marcella Yu, Ajaykumar Gopal
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
Abstract:
We demonstrate that a semiconducting polymer [poly(2-methoxy-5-propyloxy sulfonate phenylene vinylene), MPS-PPV] can be encapsulated inside recombinant, self-assembling protein nanocapsules called "vaults". Polymer incorporation into these nanosized protein cages, found naturally at approximately 10,000 copies per human cell, was confirmed by fluorescence spectroscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering. Although vault cellular functions and gating mechanisms remain unknown, their large internal volume and natural prevalence within the human body suggests they could be used as carriers for therapeutics and medical imaging reagents. This study provides the groundwork for the use of vaults in encapsulation and delivery applications.
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