LEAFY protein crystals with a honeycomb structure as a platform for selective preparation of outstanding stable bio-hybrid materials

Abstract

Well-organized protein assemblies offer many properties that justify their use for the design of innovative bionanomaterials. Here, crystals of the oligomerization domain of the LEAFY protein from Ginkgo biloba, organized...

Self-Assembly of a Ginkgo Oligomerization Domain Creates a Sub-10-nm Honeycomb Architecture on Carbon and Silicon Surfaces with Customizable Pores: Implications for Nanoelectronics, Biosensing, and Biocatalysis

“…These residues remain invisible by X-ray crystallography (Fig. 1) because of their flexible structure, but their presence was confirmed by mass spectrometry 35 . GbLFY-SAM proteins were expressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) strain.…”

“…These residues remain invisible in the X-ray crystallography images (Figure 1) because of their flexible structure, but their presence was confirmed by mass spectrometry. 35 GbLFY-SAM proteins were expressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) strain. First, cells were transformed with pETM11 plasmid coding for an Nterminal histidine tag and a tobacco etch virus protease cleavage site for the N-terminal extension (referred as TEV) followed by the sequence corresponding to GbLFY-SAM wild type protein.…”

“…In addition, it has been shown that the C-terminal extension of GbLFY-SAM also faces the inside of the pore. 35 We investigated if it was possible to modify the amino acids of the C-terminal extension without affecting the oligomerization capacity of the monomer and the honeycomb structure. We aimed to explore a modification of GbLFY-SAM involving a complete deletion of its C-terminal extension.…”

“…Selective grafting on the protein can be easily obtained, and many amino acid residues can be used 40,41 as demonstrated with the grafting of a rutheniumbased complex onto modified residues of the pores of 3D-GbLFY-SAM crystals in solution. 35 The pores of the honeycomb could hold specific grafting of catalysts and chromophores at different positions. Hence, the GbLFY-SAM self-assembly on the surface could be easily used as a biocatalysis platform.…”

“…In solution, self-assembly leads to exceptionally robust micrometer hexagonal crystals that can be functionalized inside the pore. 33,35 The robustness of the honeycomb relies on the tight interaction between the edge of each helical polymer and the groove of its six neighbors (Figure 1). Whether this 3D modular honeycomb architecture can occur on surfaces has remained elusive.…”