A paper regarding on artificial nucleocapsids for RNA delivery has been published in Angewandte Chemie

A paper regarding on artificial nucleocapsids for RNA delivery has been published in Angewandte Chemie. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ange.202519027?af=R

In this paper, we report engineering and directed evolution of a neo-nucleocapsid enabling receptor-specific RNA delivery. We applied the DogTag/DogCatcher protein ligation system to an artificial nucleocapsid and conducted directed evolution to obtain nucleocapsid displaying proteins. To create designer neo-nucleocapsids, we lasso-grafted a pharmacophore sequence of a pseudo-cyclic peptide binding to the hepatocyte growth factor receptor MET into the loop of DogCatcher. After the cellular-based directed evolution, endocytic uptake of neo-nucleocapsids was improved whereas cytosolic release and subsequent protein expression from the delivered RNA were not detected. This experimental approach provides a versatile system for constructing protein cages delivering various cargos to specific cells. This research was conducted in collaboration with Professor Kazuki Kato of the Institute of Integrated Research, Institute of Science Tokyo.