School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
Singapore Membrane Technology Centre, Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637141, Singapore.
ACS Biomater Sci Eng. 2023 Oct 9;9(10):5679-5686. doi: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.3c01047. Epub 2023 Sep 18.
The strategy of robust adhesion employed by barnacles renders them fascinating biomimetic candidates for developing novel wet adhesives. Particularly, barnacle cement protein 19k (cp19k) has been speculated to be the key adhesive protein establishing the priming layer in the initial barnacle cement construction. In this work, we systematically studied the sequence design rationale of cp19k by designing adhesive peptides inspired by the low-complexity STGA-rich and the charged segments of cp19k. Combining structure analysis and the adhesion performance test, we found that cp19k-inspired adhesive peptides possess excellent disparate adhesion strategies for both hydrophilic mica and hydrophobic self-assembled monolayer surfaces. Specifically, the low-complexity STGA-rich segment offers great structure flexibility for surface adhesion, while the hydrophobic and charged residues can contribute to the adhesion of the peptides on hydrophobic and charged surfaces. The adaptive adhesion strategy identified in this work broadens our understanding of barnacle adhesion mechanisms and offers valuable insights for designing advanced wet adhesives with exceptional performance on various types of surfaces.
藤壶所采用的坚固附着策略使它们成为开发新型湿黏附剂的迷人仿生候选材料。特别是藤壶胶蛋白 19k（cp19k）被推测为在初始藤壶胶形成过程中建立初始层的关键黏附蛋白。在这项工作中，我们通过设计受 cp19k 中低复杂度的 STGA 丰富区和带电片段启发的黏附肽，系统地研究了 cp19k 的序列设计原理。通过结构分析和黏附性能测试，我们发现受 cp19k 启发的黏附肽对亲水云母和疏水自组装单分子层表面具有优异的不同黏附策略。具体来说，低复杂度的 STGA 丰富区为表面附着提供了很大的结构灵活性，而疏水性和带电残基可以促进肽在疏水和带电表面上的附着。本工作中确定的自适应附着策略拓宽了我们对藤壶附着机制的理解，并为设计具有各种类型表面优异性能的先进湿黏附剂提供了有价值的见解。
