Protein-Mediated Colloidal Assembly

Abstract

Programmable colloidal assembly enables the creation of mesoscale materials in a bottom-up manner. Although DNA oligonucleotides have been used extensively as the programmable units in this paradigm, proteins, which exhibit more diverse modes of association and function, have not been widely used to direct colloidal assembly. Here we use protein–protein interactions to drive controlled aggregation of polystyrene microparticles, either through reversible coiled-coil interactions or through intermolecular isopeptide linkages. The sizes of the resulting aggregates are tunable and can be controlled by the concentration of immobilized surface proteins. Moreover, particles coated with different protein pairs undergo orthogonal assembly. We demonstrate that aggregates formed by association of coiled-coil proteins, in contrast to those linked by isopeptide bonds, are dispersed by treatment with chemical denaturants or soluble competing proteins. Finally, we show that protein–protein interactions can be used to assemble complex core–shell aggregates. This work illustrates a versatile strategy for engineering colloidal systems for use in materials science and biotechnology.

Interplay Between Short-range Attraction and Long-range Repulsion Controls Reentrant Liquid Condensation of Ribonucleoprotein-RNA Complexes

“…These results indicate that the rules of sequence-specific molecular interactions are relevant not only to understand the reentrant liquid condensation behavior of RNP-RNA complexes, but also to potentially engineer new mesoscale materials where viscoelastic peptide-nucleic acid microspheres could be utilized as soft colloids for gelation. Unlike commonly used DNA and protein-coated polystyrene particles [51,52], the hardness of these peptide-RNA microspheres can be finely tuned by varying amino acid and nucleobase sequences of polypeptides and nucleic acids, respectively.…”

Peptide-induced super-assembly of biocatalytic metal–organic frameworks for programmed enzyme cascades

“…For example, complementary dimeric coiled-coil peptides can induce the self-assembly of artificial viral capsids 40,41. Protein–protein helical hetero-dimers were used in colloidal assembly of polystyrene microparticles42 and protein super-structures 43. In addition, super-assembled gold nanoparticles induced by dimeric coiled-coil peptides exhibited stimuli-responsive characteristics in response to pH and temperature changes 44.…”

Advanced Bottom‐Up Engineering of Living Architectures

“…These systems serve as reduction‐responsive cell backpacks that release their cargo in the presence of the characteristic increase in redox activity at T‐cells surfaces . In terms of augmenting cell aggregation, protein–protein interactions can also drive colloidal assembly, which could be a pathway for establishing nanoenabled cell‐dense modules with nanoparticulated reservoirs of bioinstructive signals . On the other hand, a recent pioneering study focused on the use 20 nm carboxylated polystyrene nanoparticles as “nanostickers” capable of effectively maintaining single cells as large cohesive aggregates .…”