Self-assembly of biological macromolecules

Biological macromolecules are largely found in animal tissues in the form of helices (a and collagen triple helix), P structures, amorphous or flexible chains, and combinations of these structures. It is the assembly of these units that makes up the crystalline arrays that are the noncellular components of tissues. It is amazing how the assembly of a few types of structures gives rise to many different tissue structures. 

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Westhof, E. and Hardy, N., eds. (2004). Folding and Self-Assembly of Biological Macromolecules. World Scientific Publishing Company Inc. 

Actin and tubulin are two important cellular components that are involved in cell shape and movement. Actin is present in all mammalian cells and is involved in cellular transport and phagocytosis (eating of extracellular materials), provides rigidity to cell membranes, and when bonded to tropomyosin and troponin, forms the thin filaments of muscle. Thbulin is the subunit from which microtubules are self-assembled. Microtubules are most commonly known for their role in cell division. The mechanisms of self-assembly of these macromolecules have been well studied and are important models of biological assembly processes. Below we examine each of these processes. 

We here highlight several applications of the SDK CG model, such as the self-assembly of biological membranes and more complex supramolecular stractures, their transformation by the effect of penetrant macromolecules, and the assembly of membranes into hierarchical structures such as multilamellar vesicles. Finally, we outline the remaining challenges for CG-MD simulations in describing the structural and thermodymamic properties of self-assembling macromolecules. 

The potential application of self-assembled scaffolds offering exact positioning of biological macromolecules within micron- to milimeter-size DNA- or protein-made crystals for structural analysis by x-ray crystallography was also suggested [5,50]. 

We have already seen from Example 10.1 that van der Waals forces play a major role in the heat of vaporization of liquids, and it is not surprising, in view of our discussion in Section 10.2 about colloid stability, that they also play a significant part in (or at least influence) a number of macroscopic phenomena such as adhesion, cohesion, self-assembly of surfactants, conformation of biological macromolecules, and formation of biological cells. We see below in this chapter (Section 10.7) some additional examples of the relation between van der Waals forces and macroscopic properties of materials and investigate how, as a consequence, measurements of macroscopic properties could be used to determine the Hamaker constant, a material property that represents the strength of van der Waals attraction (or repulsion see Section 10.8b) between macroscopic bodies. In this section, we present one illustration of the macroscopic implications of van der Waals forces in thermodynamics, namely, the relation between the interaction forces discussed in the previous section and the van der Waals equation of state. In particular, our objective is to relate the molecular van der Waals parameter (e.g., 0n in Equation (33)) to the parameter a that appears in the van der Waals equation of state ... 

Silver FH. Self-assembly of connective tissue macromolecules. In Biological Materials Structure, Mechanical Properties, and Modeling of Soft Tissues. New York NYU Press, 1987 Chapter 5,150-153. 

While studies of biological macromolecules (proteins and nucleic acids) [1, 2] and phospholipid vesicles [3-5] using fluorescence spectroscopy techniques are numerous and many reviews have already been published, much less attention has been paid to surfactant micelles [6-9], and fluorescence studies of block copolymer micelles are even scarcer [10-12] so far despite the fast growing number of publications on block copolymer self-assembly in the literature. 

Supramolecular chemistry in aprotic solvents is currently a well-developed field, as described in many reviews and books. In contrast, self-assembly, molecular recognition, and catalytic reactions in nature take place largely in aqueous media. Therefore, the design and synthesis of supramolecular complexes for the recognition and sensing of biological macromolecules and for catalytic reactions of biorelevant substrates in aqueous solution are of great interest. ... 

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