Fabrication of fibrillosomes from droplets stabilized by protein nanofibrils at all-aqueous interfaces

Yang Song, Ulyana Shimanovich, Thomas C. T. Michaels, Qingming Ma, Jingmei Li, Tuomas P. J. Knowles () and Ho Cheung Shum ()
Additional contact information
Yang Song: the University of Hong Kong
Ulyana Shimanovich: University of Cambridge
Thomas C. T. Michaels: University of Cambridge
Qingming Ma: the University of Hong Kong
Jingmei Li: the University of Hong Kong
Tuomas P. J. Knowles: University of Cambridge
Ho Cheung Shum: the University of Hong Kong

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract All-aqueous emulsions exploit spontaneous liquid–liquid separation and due to their water-based nature are particular advantageous for the biocompatible storage and processing of biomacromolecules. However, the ultralow interfacial tensions characteristic of all-aqueous interfaces represent an inherent limitation to the use of thermally adsorbed particles to achieve emulsion stability. Here, we use protein nanofibrils to generate colloidosome-like two-dimensional crosslinked networks of nanostructures templated by all-aqueous emulsions, which we term fibrillosomes. We show that this approach not only allows us to operate below the thermal limit at ultra-low surface tensions but also yields structures that are stable even in the complete absence of an interface. Moreover, we show that the growth and multilayer deposition of fibrils allows us to control the thickness of the capsule shells. These results open up the possibility of stabilizing aqueous two-phase systems using natural proteins, and creating self-standing protein capsules without the requirement for three-phase emulsions or water/oil interfaces.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12934 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:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms12934

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

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12934

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 ().