Reversible pH lability of cross-linked vault nanocapsules.

Vaults are ubiquitous, self-assembled protein nanocapsules with dimension in the sub-100 nm range that are conserved across diverse phyla from worms to humans. Their normal presence in humans at a copy number of over 10,000/cell makes them attractive as potential drug delivery vehicles. Toward this goal, bifunctional amine-reactive reagents are shown to be useful for the reversible cross-linking of recombinant vaults such that they may be closed and opened in a controllable manner.