A facile and universal method to efficiently fabricate diverse protein capsules for multiple potential applications

Proteins are considered to be one of the most important highly reproducible and monodisperse building blocks with specific functions in life sciences and material science. Protein capsules and their hybrids composed of protein–polymer conjugates have been intensively explored in drug delivery, catalysis, and cell-mimicking functions. Herein, we present a facile, universal, and efficient method to fabricate the diverse protein capsules, independent of the molecular weight (Mw), isoelectric points (IEP), wettability, amino acid sequence, and functional domains of enumerated proteins. The protein capsules were well characterized by various techniques. Furthermore, their ability to store the original protein functionality was demonstrated, which was mainly embodied in their enzyme responsiveness and good biocompatibility in vitro and in vivo. We believe that these protein capsules have multiple potential applications such as in drug delivery, tissue engineering, catalysis, and other application fields.