Design of protein struts for self-assembling nanoconstructs.

Bacteriophage T4 tail fibers have a quaternary structure of bent rigid rods, 3 x 160 nm in size. The four proteins which make up these organelles are able to self-assemble in an essentially irreversible manner. To use the self-assembly domains of these proteins as elements in construction of mesoscale structures, we must be able to rearrange these domains without affecting the self-assembly properties and add internal binding sites for other functional elements. Here we present results on several alterations of the P37 component of the T4 tail fiber that change its length and add novel protein sequences into the protein. One of these sequences is an antibody binding site that is used to inactivate phage carrying the modified gene.