Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel.
The Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
Nat Commun. 2016 Nov 17;7:13482. doi: 10.1038/ncomms13482.
Mimicking the multifunctional bacterial type IV pili (T4Ps) nanofibres provides an important avenue towards the development of new functional nanostructured biomaterials. Yet, the development of T4Ps-based applications is limited by the inability to form these nanofibres in vitro from their pilin monomers. Here, to overcome this limitation, we followed a reductionist approach and designed a self-assembling pilin-based 20-mer peptide, derived from the presumably bioelectronic pilin of Geobacter sulfurreducens. The designed 20-mer, which spans sequences from both the polymerization domain and the functionality region of the pilin, self-assembled into ordered nanofibres. Investigation of the 20-mer revealed that shorter sequences which correspond to the polymerization domain form a supramolecular β-sheet, contrary to their helical configuration in the native T4P core, due to alternative molecular recognition. In contrast, the sequence derived from the functionality region maintains a native-like, helical conformation. This study presents a new family of self-assembling peptides which form T4P-like nanostructures.
模拟多功能细菌 IV 型菌毛（T4P）纳米纤维为开发新型功能纳米结构生物材料提供了重要途径。然而，T4P 相关应用的发展受到限制，因为无法从其菌毛单体在体外形成这些纳米纤维。为了克服这一限制，我们采用了一种简化的方法，设计了一种基于菌毛的自组装 20 肽，源自假定的生物电子菌 Geobacter sulfurreducens 的菌毛。设计的 20 肽跨越了菌毛聚合结构域和功能区的序列，自组装成有序的纳米纤维。对 20 肽的研究表明，较短的序列对应于聚合结构域形成超分子 β-折叠，与它们在天然 T4P 核心中的螺旋结构相反，这是由于替代的分子识别。相比之下，源自功能区的序列保持类似天然的螺旋构象。本研究提出了一类新的自组装肽，它们形成类似 T4P 的纳米结构。
