Covalently-assembled single-chain protein nanostructures with ultra-high stability

Wenqin Bai, Cameron J. Sargent, Jeong-Mo Choi, Rohit V. Pappu and Fuzhong Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Wenqin Bai: Washington University in St. Louis
Cameron J. Sargent: Washington University in St. Louis
Jeong-Mo Choi: Washington University in St. Louis
Rohit V. Pappu: Washington University in St. Louis
Fuzhong Zhang: Washington University in St. Louis

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Protein nanostructures with precisely defined geometries have many potential applications in catalysis, sensing, signal processing, and drug delivery. While many de novo protein nanostructures have been assembled via non-covalent intramolecular and intermolecular interactions, a largely unexplored strategy is to construct nanostructures by covalently linking multiple individually folded proteins through site-specific ligations. Here, we report the synthesis of single-chain protein nanostructures with triangular and square shapes made using multiple copies of a three-helix bundle protein and split intein chemistry. Coarse-grained simulations confirm the experimentally observed flexibility of these nanostructures, which is optimized to produce triangular structures with high regularity. These single-chain nanostructures also display ultra-high thermostability, resist denaturation by chaotropes and organic solvents, and have applicability as scaffolds for assembling materials with nanometer resolution. Our results show that site-specific covalent ligation can be used to assemble individually folded proteins into single-chain nanostructures with bespoke architectures and high stabilities.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11285-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-11285-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11285-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().