If you cleave the protein the the presence of molecule fused to a a cargo-loading peptide (CLP), the cages will package the cargo molecule with minimal losses. We show the packaging of a fluorescent protein, synthetic dye, and cancer drug molecule.

By fusing the encapsulin monomer to a steric block, we prevent in vivo assembly and can purify stable, soluble unassembled encapsulin! Cleaving off the fusion leads to robust assemblies which are higher fidelity and more stable than their in vivo counterparts