Jia Haiyang, Sun Huan, Flommersfeld Johannes, Shi Wentao, Siedler Frank, Schwille Petra
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
The Institute of Medicinal Plant Development (IMPLAD), Beijing, People's Republic of China.
Nat Protoc. 2025 Jul 2. doi: 10.1038/s41596-025-01186-0.
Assembling and upscaling biomolecular activity to perform work in man-made devices is a challenge in synthetic biology. Here we report the step-by-step process to construct fully protein-based micro-three-dimensional (3D) printed robotic structures, which are coated with and actuated by a minimal actomyosin cortex. This approach can be used to program self-powered soft robots assembled from multiple biomolecular modules, devising biophysical assays to quantify active forces produced in 3D and engineering smart 3D microchips for synthetic cell assembly. The procedure covers the establishment of 3D printing microstructures from protein materials, the assembly of actomyosin-based active coatings and the robotic structure design and characterization. The detailed step-by-step instructions will guide scientists in replicating the preparation procedures, facilitating the adoption of biomolecular microrobots and the development of 3D protein-based robotic technology and their applications. The procedure is suited for users with expertise in biomaterials and requires 15 d to complete.
在合成生物学中，将生物分子活性组装并扩大规模以在人造设备中执行工作是一项挑战。在此，我们报告了构建完全基于蛋白质的微三维（3D）打印机器人结构的分步过程，这些结构涂覆有最小化的肌动球蛋白皮层并由其驱动。这种方法可用于对由多个生物分子模块组装而成的自供电软机器人进行编程，设计生物物理测定法以量化在三维空间中产生的作用力，并设计用于合成细胞组装的智能3D微芯片。该过程涵盖了从蛋白质材料建立3D打印微结构、组装基于肌动球蛋白的活性涂层以及机器人结构设计与表征。详细的分步说明将指导科学家复制制备程序，促进生物分子微型机器人的应用以及基于3D蛋白质的机器人技术及其应用的发展。该程序适合具有生物材料专业知识的用户，完成需要15天。
