Decoding Outer Membrane β-Barrels: From Structural Curiosity to Engineered Nanotherapeutics

. This review integrates the discovery and early studies of OMP structures and folding energy landscapes with their organizational, mechanistic, and functional diversity. Insights from rational engineering of β-barrels highlight their application in biosensing, drug delivery, diagnostics, synthetic biology, and nanomedicine. These developments will transform our understanding of OMPs from structural curiosity to precision biomolecular design and next-generation nanotherapeutics.