AsianScientist (Nov. 23, 2018) – By using crystallized proteins as a scaffold, researchers have successfully formed nanotubes made out of proteins. Their findings, published in Chemical Science, could pave the way for the development of artificial enzymes and new drug delivery systems.
Being able to tailor-make protein nanostructures would allow scientists to design highly specific and powerful catalysts and develop new drugs, among other applications. However, it is difficult to control the assembly of proteins in an aqueous solution due to the disorganized way that proteins interact under varying conditions such as pH and temperature.
In the present study, researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology have overcome these problems by using protein crystals as a scaffold. The orderly arrangement of the crystals allowed them to precisely control the chemical interactions of interest.
Using a highly stable protein called RubisCO as the building block, they were able to use cross-linking to stabilize the formation of RubisCO nanotubes that retained their enzymatic ability.
“Our cross-linking method can facilitate the formation of the crystal scaffold efficiently at the desired position (specific cysteine sites) within each tubes of the crystal,” said study corresponding author Professor Takafumi Ueno.
“At present, since more than 100,000 protein crystal structures have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank, our method can be applied to other protein crystals for construction of supramolecular protein assemblies, such as cages, tubes and sheets.”
The article can be found at: Nguyen et al. (2018) Construction of Supramolecular Nanotubes From Protein Crystals.
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Source: Tokyo Institute of Technology.
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