Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts , 710 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, United States.
ACS Nano. 2017 Apr 25;11(4):3456-3462. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.6b07258. Epub 2017 Feb 28.
Hierarchical organization of macromolecules through self-assembly is a prominent feature in biological systems. Synthetic fabrication of such structures provides materials with emergent functions. Here, we report the fabrication of self-assembled superstructures through coengineering of recombinant proteins and nanoparticles. These structures feature a highly sophisticated level of multilayered hierarchical organization of the components: individual proteins and nanoparticles coassemble to form discrete assemblies that collapse to form granules, which then further self-organize to generate superstructures with sizes of hundreds of nanometers. The components within these superstructures are dynamic and spatially reorganize in response to environmental influences. The precise control over the molecular organization of building blocks imparted by this protein-nanoparticle coengineering strategy provides a method for creating hierarchical hybrid materials.
大分子通过自组装形成的层次结构是生物系统的一个显著特征。通过这种结构的合成制造，可以为材料提供新的功能。在这里，我们报告了通过重组蛋白和纳米粒子的共同工程来制造自组装超结构。这些结构具有高度复杂的多层次组件层次结构：单个蛋白质和纳米粒子共同组装形成离散的组装体，这些组装体坍塌形成颗粒，然后进一步自组装形成具有数百纳米大小的超结构。这些超结构内的组件是动态的，并根据环境影响进行空间重组。通过这种蛋白质-纳米粒子共同工程策略对构建块的分子组织进行精确控制，为创建层次化混合材料提供了一种方法。
