Abstract

nanoBRICKsPRO – synthetic smart nanomaterials from nano to macro

Nanotechnology designs materials with advanced properties based on the control of molecular structure at the nanoscale. Biological systems provide an attractive opportunity to design and easily manufacture material with programmable properties. DNA origami demonstrated the power of this technology by creating a variety of assemblies that can be easily encoded in the nucleotide sequence. However, for biological nanodevices nature favors polypeptides over nucleic acids due to stability and versatility of amino-acid side chains. With few exceptions protein and peptide assemblies have been considered too difficult for the bottom-up design due to complex interactions and manufacturing problems specific for each case. We present technology for manufacturing nanomaterials based on combinations of modular peptide elements and protein domains, which allow self-assembly into complex tertiary structures with designed macroscopic properties. We demonstrate the feasibility and potentials of protein nanotechnology by design, streamlining the production and technological application of nanomaterials based on nanoBRICKsPRO.

Abstract for nonspecialists

Imagine that you could manufacture complex devices that self-assemble from their components, imagine that those components measure a few nanometers, imagine that you could have a factory that produces those devices from simple sugars or even from solar light and carbon dioxide. This is exactly what is going on in cells as the ultimate factories and the devices that are produced are mainly made of polypeptides, such as enzymes, silk or hair. We set to prepare and test modular genetic elements we named nanoBricks, to create self-assembling material to form structures unseen in nature. In comparison to usual nanomaterials we can program the composition of polypeptide nanomaterials through DNA code. This allows us an unrivaled control of their composition at nanoscale, which determines the properties of those materials. We achieved this by combining small building blocks, called coiled-coils that twist around each other, forming rigid rods. Several of those rods are linked by flexible hinges into chains, which can assemble into complex polyhedra and into planar and three-dimensional networks. Those assemblies may contain pores of a defined size, which we can modify at will with respect to size or chemical properties. We used nanoBricks to prepare functional ultrafiltration membrane and material that can be assembled or disassembled by the addition of small molecules. The high level of control at the nanoscale, ease and sustainability of production has exciting potentials for manufacturing sophisticated scaffolds, biomineralization, drug delivery and many, many more applications.

Modular nanoBricks were used to prepare polypeptide chain, composed of three designed coiled-coil -forming segments (shown as arrows), which guide the polypeptide chains into nanobox as well as into planar lattice (left), which we experimentally confirmed (right, transmission electron microscopic image).