Tunable crystallization, degradation, and self-assembly of recombinant protein block copolymers

Influence of Spider Silk Protein Structure on Mechanical and Biological Properties for Energetic Material Detection

Spider silk protein, renowned for its excellent mechanical properties, biodegradability, chemical stability, and low immune and inflammatory response activation, consists of a core domain with a repeat sequence and non-repeating sequences at the N-terminal and C-terminal. In this review, we focus on the relationship between the silk structure and its mechanical properties, exploring the potential applications of spider silk materials in the detection of energetic materials.

Engineering Natural and Recombinant Silks for Sustainable Biodevices

Silk fibroin (SF) is a structural protein derived from natural silkworm silks. Materials fabricated based on SF usually inherit extraordinary physical and biological properties, including high mechanical strength, toughness, optical transparency, tailorable biodegradability, and biocompatibility. Therefore, SF has attracted interest in the development of sustainable biodevices, especially for emergent bio-electronic technologies. To expand the function of current silk devices, the SF characteristic sequence has been used to synthesize recombinant silk proteins that benefit from SF and other functional peptides, such as stimuli-responsive elastin peptides. In addition to genetic engineering methods, innovated chemistry modification approaches and improved material processing techniques have also been developed for fabricating advanced silk materials with tailored chemical features and nanostructures. Herein, this review summarizes various methods to synthesize functional silk-based materials from different perspectives. This review also highlights the recent advances in the applications of natural and recombinant silks in tissue regeneration, soft robotics, and biosensors, using B. mori SF and silk-elastin-like proteins (SELPs) as examples.

Gelation Methods to Assemble Fibrous Proteins

Gelation is an efficient way to fabricate fibrous protein materials. Briefly, it is an aggregation process where protein molecules assembly from a random structure into an organized structure such as nanofibrillar networks. According to their mechanisms, the fibrous proteins gelation can be classified into physical gelation and chemical gelation. The physical gelation is formed by the conformational transformation of fibroin proteins, which can be triggered by temperature, concentration, pH, or shear force. On the other hand, the chemical gelation is to cross-link fibrous proteins through chemical and/or enzymatic reactions. In this chapter, we summarize the protocols for preparing fibrous protein hydrogels, including both physical and chemical methods. The mechanisms of these gelation methods are also highlighted.

Fabrication of heterostructured Ag/AgCl@g-C3N4@UIO-66(NH2) nanocomposite for efficient photocatalytic inactivation of Microcystis aeruginosa under visible light

In this work, a novel Ag/AgCl@g-C₃N₄@UIO-66(NH₂) heterojunction was constructed for photocatalytic inactivation of Microcystis aeruginosa (M. aeruginosa) under visible light. The photocatalyst was synthesized by a facile method and characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, BET, XPS, FT-IR, UV-vis DRS, PL and EIS. The nanocomposite can not only provide lots of active sites, but also improve capacities to utilize visible-light energy and effectively transfer charge carriers, thus enhancing removal efficiencies of cyanobacteria (99.9% chlorophyll a was degraded within 180 min). Various factors in photodegradation of chlorophyll a were studied. Besides, changes on cellular morphologies, membrane permeability, physiological activities of M. aeruginosa during photocatalysis were investigated. Moreover, the cycle test indicated that Ag/AgCl@g-C₃N₄@UIO-66(NH₂) exhibits excellent reusability and photocatalytic stability. Finally, a possible mechanism of M. aeruginosa inactivation was proposed. In a word, Ag/AgCl@g-C₃N₄@UIO-66(NH₂) can efficiently inactivate cyanobacteria under visible light, thus providing useful references for further removal of harmful algae in real water bodies.

Characterizing and Controlling Nanoscale Self-Assembly of Suckerin-12

Structural proteins such as "suckerins" present promising avenues for fabricating functional materials. Suckerins are a family of naturally occurring block copolymer-type proteins that comprise the sucker ring teeth of cephalopods and are known to self-assemble into supramolecular networks of nanoconfined β-sheets. Here, we report the characterization and controllable, nanoscale self-assembly of suckerin-12 (S12). We characterize the impacts of salt, pH, and protein concentration on S12 solubility, secondary structure, and self-assembly. In doing so, we identify conditions for fabricating ∼100 nm nanoassemblies (NAs) with narrow size distributions. Finally, by installing a noncanonical amino acid (ncAA) into S12, we demonstrate the assembly of NAs that are covalently conjugated with a hydrophobic fluorophore and the ability to change self-assembly and β-sheet content by PEGylation. This work presents new insights into the biochemistry of suckerin-12 and demonstrates how ncAAs can be used to expedite and fine-tune the design of protein materials.

Self-assembly behavior of the keratose proteins extracted from oxidized Ovis aries wool fibers

Water soluble keratose proteins were obtained from an Ovis Aries wool using peracetic acid oxidation. The wool samples and the extracted keratose proteins were characterized by using FTIR, XRD, SEM and TGA techniques. Fractions of α-keratose (MW = 43-53 kDa) along with protein species with molecular weights between 23 kDa and 33 kDa were identified in the SDS-PAGE analysis result of the extracted protein mixture. DLS and AFM experiments indicated that self-assembled globular nanoparticles with diameters between 15 nm and 100 nm formed at 5 mg/ml keratose concentration. On the other hand, upon incubation of 10 w % keratose solutions at 37 °C and 50 °C, interconnected keratose hydrogels with respective storage modulus (G') values of 0.17 ± 0.03 kPa and 3.7 ± 0.5 kPa were obtained. It was shown that the keratose hydrogel prepared at 37 °C supported L929 mouse fibroblast cell proliferation which suggested that these keratose hydrogels could be promising candidates in soft tissue engineering applications.

De Novo Design of Recombinant Spider Silk Proteins for Material Applications

Spider silks are well known for their superior mechanical properties that are stronger and tougher than steel despite being assembled at close to ambient conditions and using water as the solvent. However, it is a significant challenge to utilize spider silks for practical applications due to their limited sources. Fortunately, genetic engineering techniques offer a promising approach to produce useable amounts of spider silk variants. Starting from these recombinant spider silk proteins, a series of experiments and simulations strategies are developed to improve the recombinant spider silk proteins (RSSP) material design and fabrication with the aim of biomimicking the structure-property-function relationships of spider silks. Accordingly, in this review, the authors first introduce the structure-property-function relationship of spider silks. Then, the recent progress in the genetic synthesis of RSSPs is discussed and their related multiscale self-assembly behaviors is summarized. Finally, the authors outline works utilizing multiscale modeling to assist RSSP material design.

Spider dragline silk composite films doped with linear and telechelic polyalanine: Effect of polyalanine on the structure and mechanical properties

Spider dragline silks have attracted intensive attention as eco-friendly tough materials because of their excellent mechanical property and biomass-based origin. Composite films based on a recombinant spider dragline silk protein (ADF3) from Araneus diadematus were prepared by doping with linear or telechelic poly(L-alanine) (L- or T-polyA, respectively) as a reinforcing agent. Higher tensile strength and toughness of the composite films were achieved with the addition of polyA compared with the tensile strength and toughness of the silk-only film. The difference in the reinforcing behavior between L- and T-polyA was associated with their primary structures, which were revealed by wide angle X-ray diffraction analysis. L-polyA showed a tendency to aggregate in the composite films and induce crystallization of the inherent silk β-sheet to afford rigid but brittle films. By contrast, T-polyA dispersion in the composite films led to the formation of β-sheet crystal of both T-polyA and the inherent silk, which imparted high strength and toughness to the silk films.