Issue 6, 2022

Hierarchical propagation of structural features in protein nanomaterials

Abstract

Natural high-performance materials have inspired the exploration of novel materials from protein building blocks. The ability of proteins to self-organize into amyloid-like nanofibrils has opened an avenue to new materials by hierarchical assembly processes. As the mechanisms by which proteins form nanofibrils are becoming clear, the challenge now is to understand how the nanofibrils can be designed to form larger structures with defined order. We here report the spontaneous and reproducible formation of ordered microstructure in solution cast films from whey protein nanofibrils. The structural features are directly connected to the nanostructure of the protein fibrils, which is itself determined by the molecular structure of the building blocks. Hence, a hierarchical assembly process ranging over more than six orders of magnitude in size is described. The fibril length distribution is found to be the main determinant of the microstructure and the assembly process originates in restricted capillary flow induced by the solvent evaporation. We demonstrate that the structural features can be switched on and off by controlling the length distribution or the evaporation rate without losing the functional properties of the protein nanofibrils.

Graphical abstract: Hierarchical propagation of structural features in protein nanomaterials

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 Aug 2021
Accepted
17 Jan 2022
First published
26 Jan 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2022,14, 2502-2510

Hierarchical propagation of structural features in protein nanomaterials

A. Kamada, A. Herneke, P. Lopez-Sanchez, C. Harder, E. Ornithopoulou, Q. Wu, X. Wei, M. Schwartzkopf, P. Müller-Buschbaum, S. V. Roth, M. S. Hedenqvist, M. Langton and C. Lendel, Nanoscale, 2022, 14, 2502 DOI: 10.1039/D1NR05571B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements