Avimer Bio and CNIO Detail AI Method for Protein Cage Design

Avimer Bio and CNIO announced in a press release a Journal of the American Chemical Society study on computational methods for designing self assembling protein cages. The approach combines geometric principles, mechanical design and AI methods to predict how alpha helices bend during assembly.

The researchers used the method to create cubic cages from four trimeric protein blocks, forming structures with 12 subunits and molecular masses above 600 kilodaltons. The designs required few mutations to the original protein sequences and remained stable in solution.

CNIO researchers used cryo electron microscopy to confirm that the physical cages matched the computational models. The measured structures reached resolutions of 3.0 to 3.9 angstroms, with differences as low as 2 angstroms across the protein backbone.