A paper regarding on an engineered closed-shell, two-component, 480-subunit nucleocapsid has been published in PNAS

A paper regarding on artificial split nucleocapsids has been published in PNAS!

M. D. Levasseur*, N. Terasaka*, A. Steinauer, S. Tetter, S, Pfister, B. H. Meier, D. Hilvert. An engineered closed-shell, two-component, 480-subunit nucleocapsid. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA. 123(22), e2530090123 (2026)

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2530090123

Natural protein shells such as viral capsids and bacterial microcompartments have inspired efforts to design synthetic compartments that protect and deliver functional molecules. Here, we show that a nonviral, artificially evolved nucleocapsid can be split into two fragments that reassemble into a closed, two-component, 480-subunit cage that packages its own mRNA. This redesign preserves the original architecture and selective RNA packaging while creating new engineerable sites on both the interior and exterior surfaces, enabling simultaneous control of internal cargo binding and external modification. The resulting two component architecture highlights the structural plasticity of synthetic nucleocapsids and provides a general strategy for constructing modular, evolvable protein containers for biotechnology and synthetic biology.