title: Self-reproduction of nanoparticles through synergistic self-assembly.
abstract: We describe a self-reproduction mechanism of nanometer-sized particles (i.e., nanodiscs) through chemical ligation of the precursors and self-assembly of the building blocks. The ligation reaction was accelerated on lipid bilayer surfaces, and the products spontaneously assembled into nanodiscs with lipid molecules. With the increase in the number of nanodiscs, a rapid proliferation of the nanodiscs occurred through the spatial rearrangements of the molecules between the pre-existing nanodiscs and the unreacted materials, rather than template- or complex-enhanced ligation of the precursors. The subsequent process of surface-enhanced ligation of integrated precursors matured the nanoparticles into identical copies of the pre-existing assembly. Our study showed that the synergistic self-assembly mechanism probably underlie the self-replication principles for heterogeneous multimolecular systems.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toyama , Toyama 930-0194, Japan.
authors.forename: Keisuke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ikeda
authors.forename: Minoru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nakano
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides