Thanks, Kovi! And thanks for including the emoji - I'm still learning the ropes! 😂

You misspelled pumpkin pie

This paper is also special because it's my first work co-authored by my better half @rezwansiddiquee.bsky.social! Many thanks to Lau Group members Alex, Lachlan, Titus, and Regi as well as UTS colleagues Andrew and Claire. And and all thanks to my supervisor @yuhenglau.bsky.social for his support!

The biggest advantage of this system is how darn easy it is to use. It's entirely modular with the cargo only needing a short CLP attached to direct packaging. This system removes a significant barrier in encapsulin biotechnology - we can't wait to see where we go from here!

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