Protein-based nanostructures

Most published work on the design and fabrication of nanostructures from biological macromolecules relate to DNA and proteins the use of other biopolymers, such as cyclodextrins [2], was far less developed. Because the use of DNA is intensively covered in Chapter 10 of this volume (also see Ref 3), as well as recently described by Seeman [4,5] this chapter will focus on proteins as a potential tool for the construction of nanostructures. Hence this chapter is focused on literature that may provide a basis for the identification of gnidelines, methodologies, and examples having potential for farther development of new protein-based composite nanostrnctnres integrating strnctnral and bioactive components. 

Vibrational Energy Flow in Proteins and Nanostructures Normal Mode-Based Methods... 

Parts II and III cover fast energy flow, both computational and experimental study of vibrational energy transport in proteins and nanostructures, which occurs typically on a lOps timescale. The four chapters in Part II detail methods based on molecular dynamics simulations for computing vibrational energy flow in proteins. The four chapters in Part III provide approaches that build mainly on a normal mode picture to describe vibrational energy and heat transport in proteins, as well as theoretical approaches that can be applied to model nanostructures, providing insights into the control of thermal transport on the nanoscale. 

Several attempts were made to apply nanostructures made of DNA or proteins to the development of alternative computation or computer memory. The concept of DNA computing was developed as an alternative computation approach based on information and data stored as sequenced DNA nucleotides and DNA-specific hybridization and elongation as a means to reach the answer or solution to a problem. Available tools of molecular biology were employed to identify and analyze the results [66-68]. This multistage computation is based on the assumption that solutions can be sought in parallel, thus compensating for the relatively slow processing time. 

Jeong and coworkers have reported peptide-based thermo-gelling systems using PEG-b-polyAla as an injectable cellular scaffold [315]. The polymer aqueous solution undergoes sol-gel transition as temperature increases. The fraction of the p-sheet structure of the poly Ala dictated the population and thickness of fibrous nanostructure in the hydrogel, which affected the proliferation and protein... 

Chemical and Genetic Probes—Nanotube-tipped atomic force microscopes can trace a strand of DNA and identify chemical markers that reveal DNA fine structure. A miniaturized sensor has been constructed based on coupling the electronic properties of nanotubes with the specific recognition properties of immobilized biomolecules by attaching organic molecules handles to these tubular nanostructures. In one study, the pi-electron network on the CNT is used to anchor a molecule that irreversibly adsorbs to the surface of the SWNT. The anchored molecules have a tail to which proteins, or a variety of other... 

Sheets also play an important role in the construction of peptide-based functional nanohbrous materials. /3-sheets are preferred over a-helices as molecular building blocks in the fabrication of artificial nanostructured materials perhaps because of the growing interest in understanding the self-assembly of two types of namral /3-sheet products silk protein and amyloid-Uke /3-sheets. Furthermore, extended /3-sheet conformation is relatively easy to achieve. Indeed, preventing their formation, particularly in high concentration or at high temperature, can be difficult in both synthetic and natural constructs. 

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