Herein, we describe a new series of fusion proteins that have been developed to self-assemble spontaneously into stable micelles that are 27 nm in diameter after enzymatic cleavage of a solubilizing protein tag. The sequences of the proteins are based on a human intrinsically disordered protein, which has been appended with a hydrophobic segment. The micelles were found to form across a broad range of pH, ionic strength, and temperature conditions, with critical micelle concentration (CMC) values below 1 µM being observed in some cases. The reported micelles were found to solubilize hydrophobic metal complexes and organic molecules, suggesting their potential suitability for catalysis and drug delivery applications.
Sequence heuristics to encode phase behaviour in intrinsically disordered protein polymers
