Work

A secondary structure within small peptides guiding spontaneous self-aggregation and nanoparticle formation

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: baculovirus is a protein that self-aggregates forming a crystal structure known as polyhedra. Baculovirus occluded inside the crystal withstand for years at room temperature retaining infectivity. By investigating the smallest fragment from polyhedrin retaining the self-aggregation properties we identified a 29 amino acid sequence that spontaneously forms nanoparticles. This small sequence contains a β-sheet followed by an α-helix. We synthesized a variety of peptides with different amino acid sequences but similar secondary structure and discovered that the peptides self-aggregate forming nanoparticles of different geometries and sizes. Furthermore, peptides containing only the β-sheet or the α-helix aggregate also. This study led to the discovery of secondary structures that spontaneously self-aggregate forming nanoparticles even when fused to the green fluorescent protein.

Source: Nanoscale Advances

DOI: 10.1039/d4na00614c

Authors: Daniel Martínez-Flores, Alicia Sampieri, Alan Juárez-Barragán, Armando Hernández-García, Luis Vaca

Institution: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Language: English

Topic: Supramolecular Self-Assembly in Materials

Subfield: Biomaterials

Field: Materials Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,962

Funder: Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México