title: Speeding up biomolecular interactions by molecular sledding.
abstract: Numerous biological processes involve association of a protein with its binding partner, an event that is preceded by a diffusion-mediated search bringing the two partners together. Often hindered by crowding in biologically relevant environments, three-dimensional diffusion can be slow and result in long bimolecular association times. Similarly, the initial association step between two binding partners often represents a rate-limiting step in biotechnologically relevant reactions. We demonstrate the practical use of an 11-a.a. DNA-interacting peptide derived from adenovirus to reduce the dimensionality of diffusional search processes and speed up associations between biological macromolecules. We functionalise binding partners with the peptide and demonstrate that the ability of the peptide to one-dimensionally diffuse along DNA results in a 20-fold reduction in reaction time. We also show that modifying PCR primers with the peptide sled enables significant acceleration of standard PCR reactions.
authors.affiliation: Single-molecule Biophysics, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Groningen 9747 AG, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Turkin
authors.affiliation: Department of Polymer Chemistry, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Groningen 9747 AG, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Polymer Chemistry, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Groningen 9747 AG, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Alessio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marcozzi
authors.affiliation: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA.
authors.forename: Walter F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Mangel
authors.affiliation: Department of Polymer Chemistry, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Groningen 9747 AG, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Herrmann
authors.affiliation: Single-molecule Biophysics, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Groningen 9747 AG, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Antoine M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: van Oijen