Proteins are building blocks that perform all key, life-facilitating functions in our bodies. Researchers at the National Institute of Chemistry have found a way to put different proteins into certain sequences and combinations that can coil into interesting shapes on their own, and have named this invention as a “protein origami”.

Ajasja Ljubetič , the main author of a paper published in Nature Biotechnology, the most renowned scientific journal in the field of biotechnology, explains that the process enables “to build a protein in exactly the shape one would like to have”, adding that the researchers have “constructed cages of different shapes – a tetrahedron, a square pyramid, or a triangular prism.”

The objects were named as protein cages since they are hollow inside, enabling scientists to pin or put something onto or into them, such as medicine. “This is how we get a delivery system for medicine. When it is locked within the cage, we make sure it reaches certain cells in the body and opens up there. Additionally, we can pin certain proteins, antigens to vertices of the cage and thus produce more efficient vaccines,” notes Ljubetič.

Protein cages have constructed themselves correctly in bacteria as well as animal cells, including those in live mice. A co-author of the study Fabio Lapenta emphasizes there has been no inflammation in mice nor liver damage detected, which indicates that there has been no pathological immune response, meaning protein cages could be used in other living organisms, too.