Artificial protein assemblies

Burkoth, T. S., Beausoleil, E., Kaur, S., Tang, D., Cohen, F. E., and Zuckermann, R.N. Toward the synthesis of artificial proteins The discovery of an amphiphilic helical peptoid assembly. Chem. Biol. 2002, 9, 647-654. 

Petka WA, Harden JL, McGrath KP et al (1998) Reversible hydrogels from self- assembling artificial proteins. Science 281 389-392... 

Shen W (2005) Structure, dynamics, and properties of artificial protein hydrogels assembled through coiled-coil domains. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena... 

Adamantane can be used to construct peptidic scaffolding and synthesis of artificial proteins. It has been introduced into different types of synthetic peptidic macrocycles, which are useful tools in peptide chemistry and stereochemistry studies and have many other applications as well. Introduction of amino acid-functionalized adamantane to the DNA nanostmctures might lead to construction of DNA-adamantane-amino acid nanostmctures with desirable stiffness and integrity. Diamondoids can be employed to constmct molecular rods, cages, and containers and also for utilization in different methods of self-assembly. In fact, through the development of self-assembly approaches and utilization of diamondoids in these processes, it would be possible to design and constmct novel nanostmctures for effective and specific carriers for each dmg. 

Fig. 15. The construction of artificial proteins by the TASP (template-assembled synthetic proteins) concept [31]. Peptidic structures are attached to a synthetic template to create artificial proteins with a defined three-dimensional architecture. (Reproduced with the permission of Ref. 1)...

Petka, W. A., Harden, J. L., McGrath, K. P., Wirtz, D., and Tirrell, D. A. (1998). Reversible hydrogels from self-assembling artificial proteins. Science 281, 389-392. 

These aspects of protein adsorption and assembly at layered materials are essential prerequisites for the construction of assemblies consisting of protein-pigment complexes or artificial reaction centers housed in protein assemblies. 

This book has been written and computer-drawn to present the wealth of membraneous structures that have been realized by chemists mainly within the last ten years. The models for these artificial molecular assemblies are the biological lipid membranes their ultimate purpose will presumably be the verification of vectorial reaction chains similar to biological processes. Nevertheless, chemical modelling of the non-covalent, ultrathin molecular assemblies developed quite independently of membrane biochemistry. From the very beginning of artifical membrane and domain constructions, it was tried to keep the preparative and analytical procedures as simple and straightforward as possible. This is comparable to the early development of synthetic polymers, where the knowledge about protein structures quickly gave birth to simple and more practical polyamides. 

These are only a few examples indicating the scope of this emerging area of research at the interface of peptide and protein chemistry and coordination chemistry. The synthesis of metal-binding metalloproteins and the introduction of redox-active metal centers into artificial proteins by self-assembly processes is surely only the beginning. One can certainly think of extending this approach to the incorporation of substrate-binding enzymatic func-... 

A few years ago, Vincent Noireaux (now at the University of Minnesota) and Albert Libchaber (of Rockefeller University in New York) published an article with a telling title A vesicle bioreactor as a step toward an artificial cell assembly they reported data of a series of experiments in which they used a vesicle like the one in Figure 5.1 / and tried to equip it with at least the elements of bare necessity for a simplest biological cell. They succeeded in implanting some of the proteins into the artificial membrane, placing some DNA inside the cell, and making a few more steps towards artificial cell. 

Haghpanah JS, et al. (2009) Artificial Protein Block Copolymers Blocks Comprising Two Distinct Self-Assembling Domains. Chembiochem. 10 p. 2733-5. 

DendrilTIGr Assemblies. Supramolecular assembly is not a new area of research and chemists have been involved in this field for a long time. However, controlled assembly of well-defined macromolecules is often seen only in nature. Dendrimers are ideal scaffolds as artificial proteins and enzyme mimics, since... 

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