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Scientists can turn proteins into endless patterns that look like flowers, trees or snowflakes, a technique that could help design a filter for contaminated water and human tissue.
Their study, led by researchers from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, is published in the journal Nature Chemistry.
Biomolecular engineers have worked on modifying the building blocks of life – proteins, DNA and lipids – to mimic nature and form interesting and useful forms and structures. Our team has developed a framework for the engineering of existing proteins in fractal forms. "
Lead author Sagar D. Khare, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers-New Brunswick School of Arts and Science
In nature, building blocks such as protein molecules are badembled into larger structures for specific purposes. A clbadic example is collagen, which forms connective tissue in our body and is strong and flexible because of the way it is organized. Tiny protein molecules come together to form structures that can be as long as tendons. Assemblies of natural proteins are also dynamic, form and dissolve in response to stimuli.
The research team has developed a technique for badembling proteins in fractal or geometric forms, which are repeated over and over again. Examples include trees, leaves and pineapples. The team used protein engineering software to design proteins that bind to each other, so that they form a tree-shaped fractal shape in response to a biological stimulus, such as in a cell, a tissue or an organism. They can also manipulate the dimensions of the shapes so that they look like flowers, trees or snowflakes, visualized with the help of special microscopy techniques.
These techniques could lead to new technologies such as the bioremediation filter, which uses biological molecules to remove herbicides from contaminated water, or synthetic matrices to help study human disease or help tissue engineering to restore, to improve or preserve damaged tissues or organs.
The next steps are to further develop the technology and expand the range of proteins that form fractal forms, as well as to use different stimuli, such as chemicals and light. Scientists also want to study how fractal forms are formed in greater detail in order to better control the process as well as the shapes and sizes of designer biomaterials.
Source:
Journal reference:
Hernandez, N.E. et al. (2019) Self-badembly of protein-based fractals in response to computational stimulus. Nature Chemistry. doi.org/10.1038/s41557-019-0277-y.
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