Bell Tracey N, Feng Keke, Calvin Gabriel, Van Winkle David H, Lenhert Steven
Department of Biological Science and Integrative NanoScience Institute, Florida State University, Biology Unit 1, 89 Chieftan Way, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, United States.
Department of Physics, Florida State University, 77 Chieftan Way, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, United States.
ACS Omega. 2020 Oct 14;5(42):27393-27400. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c03799. eCollection 2020 Oct 27.
Information contained in the sequences of biological polymers such as DNA and protein is crucial to determining their function. Lipids are not generally thought of as information-containing molecules. However, from a supramolecular perspective, the number of possible combinations of lipids in a mixture is comparable to the complexity of DNA or proteins. Here, we test the idea that an organic composome can exhibit molecular recognition. We use water/octanol as a model two-phase system and investigate the effect of organic solutes in different combinations in the organic phase on selective partitioning of two water-soluble dyes (Brilliant Blue FCF and Allura Red AC) from the aqueous phase into the organic phase. We found that variation in the concentration of the surfactant cetyltrimethylamonium bromide (CTAB) in the octanol phase alone was sufficient to cause a switch in selectivity, with low CTAB concentrations being selective for the red dye and high CTAB concentrations being selective for the blue dye. Other organic components were added to the organic phase to introduce molecular diversity into the composome and directed evolution was used to optimize the relative concentrations of the solutes. An improvement of selective partitioning in the heterogeneous system over the pure CTAB solution was observed. The results indicate that supramolecular composomes are sufficient for molecular recognition processes in a way analogous to nucleic acid aptamers.
生物聚合物（如DNA和蛋白质）序列中包含的信息对于确定其功能至关重要。脂质通常不被认为是含信息分子。然而，从超分子角度来看，混合物中脂质的可能组合数量与DNA或蛋白质的复杂性相当。在此，我们测试了有机复合体能表现出分子识别的观点。我们使用水/辛醇作为模型两相系统，并研究有机相中不同组合的有机溶质对两种水溶性染料（亮蓝FCF和诱惑红AC）从水相选择性分配到有机相的影响。我们发现，仅辛醇相中表面活性剂十六烷基三甲基溴化铵（CTAB）浓度的变化就足以导致选择性的转变，低CTAB浓度对红色染料具有选择性，高CTAB浓度对蓝色染料具有选择性。向有机相中添加其他有机成分以将分子多样性引入复合体，并使用定向进化来优化溶质的相对浓度。观察到在非均相系统中选择性分配相对于纯CTAB溶液有所改善。结果表明，超分子复合体足以以类似于核酸适体的方式进行分子识别过程。
