title: A protein engineered to bind uranyl selectively and with femtomolar affinity.
abstract: Uranyl (UO2(2+)), the predominant aerobic form of uranium, is present in the ocean at a concentration of ~3.2 parts per 10(9) (13.7 nM); however, the successful enrichment of uranyl from this vast resource has been limited by the high concentrations of metal ions of similar size and charge, which makes it difficult to design a binding motif that is selective for uranyl. Here we report the design and rational development of a uranyl-binding protein using a computational screening process in the initial search for potential uranyl-binding sites. The engineered protein is thermally stable and offers very high affinity and selectivity for uranyl with a Kd of 7.4 femtomolar (fM) and >10,000-fold selectivity over other metal ions. We also demonstrated that the uranyl-binding protein can repeatedly sequester 30-60% of the uranyl in synthetic sea water. The chemical strategy employed here may be applied to engineer other selective metal-binding proteins for biotechnology and remediation applications.
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA [2].
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA [2].
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bosscher
authors.affiliation: 1] BNLMS, State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering and Center for Quantitative Biology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China [2] Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China [3].
authors.forename: Changsheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Salih
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ozçubukçu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Charles J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Jianzhao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA.
authors.forename: Mark P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.affiliation: 1] BNLMS, State Key Laboratory for Structural Chemistry of Unstable and Stable Species, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering and Center for Quantitative Biology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China [2] Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Luhua
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 929 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
authors.forename: Chuan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: He
mesh_terms: D001665:Binding Sites; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D008958:Models, Molecular; D015202:Protein Engineering; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D014501:Uranium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins; D014501:Uranium