State Key Laboratory of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China.
Nanoscale. 2017 Jun 14;9(23):7991-7997. doi: 10.1039/c7nr01612c.
Manipulating proteins to self-assemble into highly ordered nanostructures not only provides insights into the natural protein assembly process but also allows access to advanced biomaterials. Host-guest interactions have been widely used in the construction of artificial protein assemblies in recent years. CB[8] can selectively associate with two tripeptide Phe-Gly-Gly (FGG) tags with an extraordinarily high binding affinity (K = 1.5 × 10 M). However, the FGG tags utilized before are all fixed to the N-termini via genetic fusion; this spatial limitation greatly confined the availability of the CB[8]/FGG pair in the construction of more sophisticated protein nanostructures. Here we first designed and synthesized a maleimide-functionalized Phe-Gly-Gly tag as a versatile site-specific protein modification tool; this designed tag can site-selectively introduce desired guest moieties onto protein surfaces for host-guest driven protein assembly. When regulating the self-assembly process of proteins and CB[8], the constructed protein nanosystem can exhibit distinctive morphological diversities ranging from nanorings, nanospirals, nanowires to superwires. This work developed a new strategy for site-specific protein modification of the CB[8] binding tag and provides a possible direction for the construction of 'smart', dynamic self-assembly systems.
将蛋白质操纵成高度有序的纳米结构不仅可以深入了解天然蛋白质组装过程，还可以获得先进的生物材料。近年来，主体-客体相互作用已广泛用于人工蛋白质组装的构建。CB[8]可以与两个具有极高结合亲和力（K=1.5×10 M）的三肽 Phe-Gly-Gly（FGG）标签选择性结合。然而，以前使用的 FGG 标签都是通过遗传融合固定在 N 末端的；这种空间限制极大地限制了 CB[8]/FGG 对更复杂蛋白质纳米结构构建的可用性。在这里，我们首次设计和合成了马来酰亚胺功能化的 Phe-Gly-Gly 标签作为一种通用的定点蛋白质修饰工具；该设计的标签可以定点将所需的客体部分引入蛋白质表面，用于主体-客体驱动的蛋白质组装。在调节蛋白质和 CB[8]的自组装过程中，构建的蛋白质纳米系统可以表现出从纳米环、纳米螺旋、纳米线到超导线的独特形态多样性。这项工作为 CB[8]结合标签的定点蛋白质修饰开发了一种新策略，并为构建“智能”、动态自组装系统提供了可能的方向。
