title: The design of symmetric protein nanomaterials comes of age in theory and practice.
abstract: In nature, protein molecules have evolved as building blocks for the assembly of diverse and complex structures, many of which exhibit a high degree of symmetry. This observation has motivated a number of recent engineering efforts in which the advantages of symmetry have been exploited to design novel self-assembling protein structures of great size. Materials ranging from cages to extended two and three-dimensional arrays have been demonstrated. Especially for extended arrays, a vast number of geometrically different design types are possible. A table of geometric rules is provided for designing a universe of novel materials by combining two component symmetries.
authors.affiliation: UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, United States; UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics, United States; UCLA-Molecular Biology Institute, United States. Electronic address: yeates@mbi.ucla.edu.
authors.forename: Todd O
authors.initials: TO
authors.lastname: Yeates
authors.affiliation: UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, United States.
authors.forename: Yuxi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: UCLA-Molecular Biology Institute, United States.
authors.forename: Joshua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Laniado
mesh_terms: D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins