Researchers of the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB-UAB) have generated four peptides, molecules smaller than proteins, capable of self-assembling in a controlled manner to form nanomaterials. The research, published in the journal ACS Nano, was conducted by Salvador Ventura, Marta Díaz Caballero and Susanna Navarro (IBB-UAB), and included the collaboration of Isabel Fuentes and Francesc Teixidor (Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona, ICMAB-CSIC).
In biotechnology, generating functional synthetic amyloid structures to form nanostructures by imitating the natural generation process is not new. The assembly of proteins into stable fibres allows creating supramolecular shapes that no isolated protein can create, and which are used as nanoconductors, photovoltaic structures, biosensors and catalysts.
Quite recently, researchers began synthesizing prion protein sequences to form nanomaterials. The interest in these sequences lies in the fact that the proteins assemble in a slower and more controlled manner, forming highly ordered, nontoxic nanostructures. However, the fact that the sequence is so long, with over 150 amino acids, makes it very difficult and expensive to synthesise.
“We have demonstrated that an adequate design can permit the size of synthetic prion sequences to be reduced down to only 7 amino acids, while conserving the same properties. The four peptides we have fabricated are the shortest structures of this type created until now, and are capable of forming stable fibril assemblies,” says Salvador Ventura, researcher at the IBB and the UAB Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Image Credit: Credit: IBB-UAB
News This Week
Video: Amplifying the impact of scientific innovations
From Frontiers Forum: How can research translate to R&D? Or a whole new business venture? In a panel session at Science Unlimited 2019, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group CEO Stefan von Holtzbrinck, Life Biosciences CEO [...]
Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked
More and more security holes are appearing in cryptocurrency and smart contract platforms, and some are fundamental to the way they were built. Early last month, the security team at Coinbase noticed something strange [...]
Supercapacitor nano-architecture: designing a plant-powered future
“The most crucial result of this work is the correlation between form and function in supercapacitor materials,” states first author Dina Ibrahim Abouelamaiem. She elaborates that “our research is driven by the need for [...]
Updated – Worldwide Press for “Human Brain/Cloud Interface”
“We’ll have nanobots that… connect our neocortex to a synthetic neocortex in the cloud. Our thinking will be a…. biological and non-biological hybrid.” Ray Kurzweil, TED 2014 UPDATE - June 18 2019 Since [...]
Research reveals liquid gold on the nanoscale
Swansea University researchers have discovered what liquid gold looks like on the nanoscale – and in doing so have mapped the way in which nanoparticles melt, which is relevant to the manufacturing and performance [...]
The Potential for Nanomedicine to Clean up our Bodies
A new study by the Environmental Working Group reveals that: “Major food companies like General Mills continue to sell popular children’s breakfast cereals and other foods contaminated with troubling levels of glyphosate, the cancer-causing [...]
Nanotechnology treatment reverses multiple sclerosis in mice
A nanotechnology treatment derived from bone marrow stem cells has reversed multiple sclerosis symptoms in mice and could eventually be used to help humans, according to a new study led by University of California, [...]
Scientists create new class of two-dimensional materials
In a paper published this week in Nature ("Freestanding crystalline oxide perovskites down to the monolayer limit"), materials science researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions unveil a new process for [...]
Leave A Comment