Abstract

Ferritin nanocages are promising nanocarriers for food bioactive compound delivery, but gastrointestinal barriers including disassociation by environmental acidity, degradation by protease, pose great challenges for cargo delivery. Herein, a self-protective ferritin that can cross gastrointestinal barriers is prepared through phosphorylation modification at 37 °C for 4 h. The results showed that the conjugation of phosphate group facilitates an acidic pI shift of ferritin from ∼5.0 to ∼4.0, allowing fast aggregation and precipitation in an intact spherical form rather than disassociation into subunits in acidic environments. Meanwhile, after incubation at simulated gastric juice for 30 min, almost 80 % STP-MjFer is retained, thus, the aggregation state and phosphate layers can improve its digestive stability. Besides, curcumin can be encapsulated within its cavity and the retention rate is ∼ 9 times higher than that of MjFer nanocage in simulated gastrointestinal fluid. Overall, the self-protective ferritin nanocarrier displays great potential for cargo delivery in food science.

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