Scientists can turn proteins into never-ending patterns that look like flowers, trees or snowflakes, a technique that could help engineer a filter for tainted water and human tissues.
Scientists can turn proteins into never-ending patterns that look like flowers, trees or snowflakes, a technique that could help engineer a filter for tainted water and human tissues.
Their study, led by researchers at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, appears in the journal Nature Chemistry.
“Biomolecular engineers have been working on modifying the building blocks of life – proteins, DNA and lipids – to mimic nature and form interesting and useful shapes and structures,” said senior author Sagar D. Khare, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers–New Brunswick. “Our team developed a framework for engineering existing proteins into fractal shapes.”
In nature, building blocks such as protein molecules are assembled into larger structures for specific purposes. A classic example is collagen, which forms connective tissue in our bodies and is strong and flexible because of how it is organized. Tiny protein molecules assemble to form structures that are scaled up and can be as long as tendons. Assemblies of natural proteins are also dynamic, forming and dissolving in response to stimuli.
Read more at Rutgers University
Image: Flower-shaped biomaterials using engineered protein building blocks. (Credit: Nancy Hernandez, William Hansen and Slava Manichev)
