Biologically templated organic polymers with nanoscale order.
Methods for the construction of ordered nanoscale arrays have been implicated in fields ranging from separation technologies to microelectronics. Yet, despite the plethora of nanoscale structures assembled in nature that use a templating strategy, chemists have been unable to replicate this success. A technology is reported for templated organic polymers composed of filamentous bacteriophage-polyacrylamide biomacromolecules that self-assemble into highly ordered helical bundles displaying hexagonal close packing. The results align with a previously reported mathematical prediction for the close packing of flexible tubes. This biopolymeric assembly can be viewed as a magnification of the inherent microscopic chirality and helicity present in individual phage particles at the macroscale level.
Willis
Bert
B
Department of Chemistry, Immunology, Core Microscopy Facility, The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, and Worm Institute for Research and Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
Eubanks
Lisa M
LM
Wood
Malcolm R
MR
Janda
Kim D
KD
Dickerson
Tobin J
TJ
Lerner
Richard A
RA
D000180:Acrylic Resins / Q000737:chemistry*; D017104:Bacteriophage M13 / Q000737:chemistry*; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D011108:Polymers / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry*; D000099166:Polyacrylamides
D000180:Acrylic Resins; D011108:Polymers; D000099166:Polyacrylamides