Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Nat Chem. 2023 Dec;15(12):1664-1671. doi: 10.1038/s41557-023-01314-x. Epub 2023 Sep 4.
Molecular systems with coincident cyclic and superhelical symmetry axes have considerable advantages for materials design as they can be readily lengthened or shortened by changing the length of the constituent monomers. Among proteins, alpha-helical coiled coils have such symmetric, extendable architectures, but are limited by the relatively fixed geometry and flexibility of the helical protomers. Here we describe a systematic approach to generating modular and rigid repeat protein oligomers with coincident C to C and superhelical symmetry axes that can be readily extended by repeat propagation. From these building blocks, we demonstrate that a wide range of unbounded fibres can be systematically designed by introducing hydrophilic surface patches that force staggering of the monomers; the geometry of such fibres can be precisely tuned by varying the number of repeat units in the monomer and the placement of the hydrophilic patches.
具有重合循环和超螺旋对称轴的分子系统在材料设计方面具有很大的优势，因为它们可以通过改变组成单体的长度来轻松地延长或缩短。在蛋白质中，α-螺旋卷曲螺旋具有这种对称的、可扩展的结构，但受到螺旋前体相对固定的几何形状和灵活性的限制。在这里，我们描述了一种系统的方法来生成具有重合 C 到 C 和超螺旋对称轴的模块化和刚性重复蛋白低聚物，通过重复扩展可以很容易地延长这些低聚物。从这些构建块中，我们证明了可以通过引入迫使单体交错的亲水表面斑块，系统地设计出广泛的无界纤维；通过改变单体中的重复单元数量和亲水斑块的位置，可以精确地调整这种纤维的几何形状。
