Department of Biomolecular Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Saga University, Nabeshima, Saga 849-8501, Japan.
J Biochem. 2009 Nov;146(5):627-31. doi: 10.1093/jb/mvp121. Epub 2009 Aug 5.
Organic compounds are used as templates to regulate the morphology of inorganic nanostructures. In the present study, we used intermediate filaments (IFs), the major cytoskeleton component of most eukaryotic cells, as a template for hollow silica nanotube preparation. Sol-gel polymerization of tetraethoxysilane proceeded preferentially on the surface of IFs assembled from vimentin protein in vitro, resulting in silica-coated fibres. After removing IFs by calcination, electron microscopy revealed hollow silica nanotubes several micrometers long, with outer diameters of 35-55 nm and an average inner diameter of 10 nm (comparable to that of IFs). Furthermore, the silica nanotubes exhibited a gnarled surface structure with an 18-26 nm repeating pattern (comparable to the 21-nm beading pattern along IFs). Thus, the characteristic morphology of IFs were well replicated into hollow silica nanotubes, suggesting that IFs maybe useful as an organic template.
有机化合物被用作模板来调节无机纳米结构的形态。在本研究中，我们使用中间丝（IFs）作为模板来制备中空二氧化硅纳米管，IFs 是大多数真核细胞的主要细胞骨架成分。体外组装的波形蛋白中间丝优先促进四乙氧基硅烷的溶胶-凝胶聚合，从而形成二氧化硅涂层纤维。通过煅烧去除 IFs 后，电子显微镜显示出几微米长的中空二氧化硅纳米管，外径为 35-55nm，平均内径为 10nm（与 IFs 相当）。此外，二氧化硅纳米管表现出扭曲的表面结构，具有 18-26nm 的重复图案（与 IFs 上的 21nm 珠状图案相当）。因此，IFs 的特征形态被很好地复制到中空二氧化硅纳米管中，这表明 IFs 可能是一种有用的有机模板。
