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Published on: December 13, 2016
Structurally Programmable Dual-Compartment Ferritin Nanocarrier for Coordinated Iron and Zinc Supplementation
Geng Cao1,2, Yishen Cheng3, Hemeng Ma1,2
1Key Laboratory of Food Nutrition and Health of Liaoning Province, School of Food Science and Technology, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian116034, China.
None:
Iron and zinc deficiencies often co-occur in infants and young children, but single supplementation is limited by poor bioavailability. Guided by AlphaFold3 (AF3) structural prediction, a linear cysteine-based motif was introduced to engineer the ferritin intrasubunit interface, enabling the construction of a dual-compartment nanocarrier capable of segregated Fe and Zn loading. In the engineered GKFN3C variant, a dual-compartment metal-binding architecture was successfully established at the subunit interface, enabling Zn2+ enrichment within the interfacial region without interfering with the oxidative mineralization and deposition of Fe2+ in the inner cavity. Compared with GKFN, GKFN3C showed significantly enhanced metal loading, with Zn and Fe increasing from 193 ± 9 to 239 ± 13 and from 334 ± 6 to 474 ± 23 ions per cage, respectively. This work provides a structurally programmable and efficiency-enhanced nanodesign strategy for coordinated multimineral supplementation.
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