title: Principles of nanostructure design with protein building blocks.
abstract: Currently there is increasing interest in nanostructures and their design. Nanostructure design involves the ability to predictably manipulate the properties of the self-assembly of autonomous units. Autonomous units have preferred conformational states. The units can be synthetic material science-based or derived from functional biological macromolecules. Autonomous biological building blocks with available structures provide an extremely rich and useful resource for design. For proteins, the structural databases contain large libraries of protein molecules and their building blocks with a range of shapes, surfaces, and chemical properties. The introduction of engineered synthetic residues or short peptides into these can expand the available chemical space and enhance the desired properties. Here we focus on the principles of nanostructure design with protein building blocks.
authors.affiliation: Basic Research Program, SAIC-Frederick, Inc., Center for Cancer Research Nanobiology Program, NCI-Frederick, Frederick, Maryland 21702, USA.
authors.forename: Chung-Jung
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zanuy
authors.forename: Nurit
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Haspel
authors.forename: Haim
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wolfson
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Alemán
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nussinov
mesh_terms: D008958:Models, Molecular; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D017510:Protein Folding; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins