Journal
ISCIENCE
Volume 25, Issue 6, Pages -Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104324
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [31871007, 32071404, 22071145, 31771105]
- National Key Research and Development Plan of China [2016YFA0201602]
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Molecular conformational engineering aims to engineer flexible non-functional molecules into unique conformations to create novel functions. Researchers propose the use of metal nanoparticles as a replacement of protein scaffolds for conformationally engineering protein fragments. By restoring antigen-recognizing function on the surface of silver nanoparticles, an artificial antibody called Silverbody is created.
Molecular conformational engineering is to engineer flexible non-functional molecules into unique conformations to create novel functions just like natural proteins fold. Obviously, it is a grand challenge with tremendous opportunities. Based on the facts that natural proteins are only marginally stable with a net stabilizing energy roughly equivalent to the energy of two hydrogen bonds, and the energy barriers for the adatom diffusion of some metals are within a similar range, we propose that metal nanoparticles can serve as a general replacement of protein scaffolds to conformationally engineer protein fragments on the surface of nanoparticles. To prove this hypothesis, herein, we successfully restore the antigen-recognizing function of the flexible peptide fragment of a natural anti-lysozyme antibody on the surface of silver nanoparticles, creating a silver nanoparticle-base artificial antibody (Silverbody). A plausible mechanism is proposed, and some general principles for conformational engineering are summarized to guide future studies in this area.
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