Bipartite design of a self-fibrillating protein copolymer with nanopatterned peptide display capabilities.
The development of biomatrices for technological and biomedical applications employs self-assembled scaffolds built from short peptidic motifs. However, biopolymers composed of protein domains would offer more varied molecular frames to introduce finer and more complex functionalities in bioreactive scaffolds using bottom-up approaches. Yet, the rules governing the three-dimensional organization of protein architectures in nature are complex and poorly understood. As a result, the synthetic fabrication of ordered protein association into polymers poses major challenges to bioengineering. We have now fabricated a self-assembling protein nanofiber with predictable morphologies and amenable to bottom-up customization, where features supporting function and assembly are spatially segregated. The design was inspired by the cross-linking of titin filaments by telethonin in the muscle sarcomere. The resulting fiber is a two-protein system that has nanopatterned peptide display capabilities as shown by the recruitment of functionalized gold nanoparticles at regular intervals of ∼ 5 nm, yielding a semiregular linear array over micrometers. This polymer promises the uncomplicated display of biologically active motifs to selectively bind and organize matter in the fine nanoscale. Further, its conceptual design has high potential for controlled plurifunctionalization.
Division of Structural Biology, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 70, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland.
Marc
M
Bruning
Laurent
L
Kreplak
Sonja
S
Leopoldseder
Shirley A
SA
Müller
Philippe
P
Ringler
Laurence
L
Duchesne
David G
DG
Fernig
Andreas
A
Engel
Zöhre
Z
Ucurum-Fotiadis
Olga
O
Mayans
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D010316:Particle Size; D019151:Peptide Library; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D011506:Proteins / Q000138:chemical synthesis*
D019151:Peptide Library; D010455:Peptides; D011108:Polymers; D011506:Proteins