Fig. 1

Recombinant production of protein nanostructures and their purification by multimodal chromatography. a The components of a protein assembly can be recombinantly produced in separate microbial strains. Following lysis of each bacterial culture, the lysates are mixed, wherein the components self-assemble into nanostructures. b Following assembly, the protein nanostructures can be purified from the rest of the lysate, including excess free components, using a multimodal chromatography (MMC) resin, Capto Core 700 (CC700). In CC700 MMC, only molecules that are smaller than the resin pores can enter the beads, where they bind to the active surface inside the beads. Because the assembled nanostructures are too large to enter the pores, and because the shell of the beads is inactive, the nanostructures do not bind to the resin and are recovered in the flow-through. c Diagram illustrating the purification procedure employed in this study. The TFF and TX-114 steps (blue squares) are optional and are useful to increase CC700 resin capacity and remove lipids and lipid-bound proteins, respectively