A Simple Approach to Design Proteins for the Sustainable Synthesis of Metal Nanoclusters

Abstract

Metal nanoclusters (NCs) are considered ideal nanomaterials for biological applications owing to their strong photoluminescence (PL), excellent photostability, and good biocompatibility. This study presents a simple and versatile strategy to design proteins, via incorporation of a di‐histidine cluster coordination site, for the sustainable synthesis and stabilization of metal NCs with different metal composition. The resulting protein‐stabilized metal NCs (Prot‐NCs) of gold, silver, and copper are highly photoluminescent and photostable, have a long shelf life, and are stable under physiological conditions. The biocompatibility of the clusters was demonstrated in cell cultures in which Prot‐NCs showed efficient cell internalization without affecting cell viability or losing luminescence. Moreover, the approach is translatable to other proteins to obtain Prot‐NCs for various biomedical applications such as cell imaging or labeling.

Nanotheranostic Application of Fluorescent Protein-Gold Nanocluster Hybrid Materials: A Mini-review

“…Au NCs contain various advantages such as low toxicity, good biocompatibility, stable luminescence, strong anti-bleaching capability and high stability. Therefore, they display great potential in the field of environmental detection, biomarker development, cell imaging and drug loading [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Different protectants can be used to synthesize Au NCs (Figure…”

Hsp90 Detection by Two Strategies Based on Auncs’ Fluorescence

“…Hsp90 is present in blood serum at very low concentration (0.31 nM). Supposing a ratio AuNCs@protein:Hsp90 1:1 in assays, the first objective is to optimize AuNCs@protein synthesis [2], [3] conditions until 0.2 nM can be detected by fluorescence. The detection limit is reached by a modification of incubation conditions [4] and molar ratio of components that take part on the synthesis reaction.…”

Repeat proteins: designing new shapes and functions for solenoid folds

“…4a). Designed tetratrico peptide repeats (TPR) have been used to build structures capable of electron transfer through FeS clusters, reliant on the specific distances between inserted metal binding regions [24] and as scaffolds for the growth of metal nanoclusters [25][26][27]. In the field of Biocatalysis, groups have recently embedded cyclo-addition reactivities into the amino acid sequence of designed TPRs [28] and developed artificial Diels-Alderases through functionalisation of interdomain cavities of homodimeric alpha-rep, a designed alpha helical scaffold based on a subset of HEAT repeat proteins [29].…”

“…Figure4: Design for applications. (A) Solenoids can be modified to host, for example, catalytic centres or metal binding sites that can be then repeated across the structure[24][25][26][27][28][29]. (B) The repetitive nature of designed armadillo repeat proteins is employed for modular binding of peptides[30,31].…”