How biomolecule mixtures communicate, interact and adapt to their
environment
Date:
April 12, 2022
Source:
Advanced Science Research Center, GC/CUNY
Summary:
New research breakthrough bridges a complexity gap between chemistry
and biology and provides a new methodology that uses designed
mixtures to engineer adaptive properties that are normally only
associated with living systems.
FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A post-doctoral researcher with the Advanced Science Research Center at
the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) has made an important step toward understanding how complex mixtures of biomolecular building blocks form
self- organized patterns.
==========================================================================
The discovery -- detailed in a new paperpublished in the journal
Chem and authored by Ankit Jain, a member of CUNY ASRC Nanoscience
Initiative Director Rein Ulijn's lab -- provides new knowledge about
adaptive biological functions, which could be critical in designing
novel materials and technologies with similar abilities and attributes.
"All life forms start with the same conserved sets of building
blocks, which includes the 20 amino acids that make up proteins," said
Jain. "Figuring out how mixtures of these molecules communicate, interact
and form self-organizing patterns would enhance our understanding of
how biology creates functionality.
This understanding could also give rise to completely new ways of creating materials and technologies that incorporate life processes such as
adapting, growing, healing and developing new properties when required."
Jain took a new, synthetic, approach to begin uncovering how complex biomolecule mixtures interact and collectively adapt to changes in their environment. Instead of trying to disentangle molecular organization in existing systems, such as those found in biological cells, he addressed
the problem in a test tube by creating mixtures with components designed
to react and interact. Jain then tracked and observed the emergence of increasingly complex patterns that the biomolecules spontaneously formed
in response to changes in their environment.
"Complex mixtures of interacting molecules are fundamental to life
processes, but they are not commonly studied in chemistry labs, because
they are messy, very complicated and difficult to study and understand,"
said Ulijn.
"Systematically designing mixtures and tracking their behavior allows
us to make fundamental observations about how mixtures of molecules
become functional collectives. We were able to detail how these
chemical systems absorb changes in external conditions to form specific patterns of build-up and breakdown. We also discovered that systems
with so many variables show a stochastic behavior, so while overall
pattern formation looks similar when running multiple experiments,
the precise details in two independent experiments are different."
Jain's experiment began with mixing a number of selected dipeptides,
which are minimalistic protein-like compounds composed of two amino
acids. These sets of dipeptides (designed based on their ability to
aggregate and interact) also contained a catalyst that enabled the
dipeptides to dynamically recombine and form peptides with more complex interaction patterns. The most complex system studied in this paper
began with 15 different dipeptides, which reversibly combine to form
225 unique tetrapeptides. It was then possible for Jain to track the
formation and breakdown of peptides of different sequence within the
mixtures. He observed that their patterns of interaction were strongly
dictated by environmental conditions.
Illuminating molecular self-organization through hierarchical patterns
of both covalent and non-covalent interactions is key to understanding
how biological functions relevant to life emerge. The new bottom-up
approach enables researchers to understand, for the first time, ensemble characteristics while simultaneously providing molecular resolution
of the information. The work demonstrates that mixtures of simple
molecules demonstrate spontaneous sequence selection, which may provide insights into the chemical origins of biological function. Overall,
the design of adaptive systems based on multi-component mixtures is
likely to lead to discovery of how patterns dictate the formation
of reconfigurable, functional materials that hold promise for future bioinspired technologies.
========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Advanced_Science_Research_Center,_GC/CUNY. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ankit Jain, Scott A. McPhee, Tong Wang, Maya Narayanan Nair, Daniela
Kroiss, Tony Z. Jia, Rein V. Ulijn. Tractable molecular adaptation
patterns in a designed complex peptide system. Chem, 2022; DOI:
10.1016/ j.chempr.2022.03.016 ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220412141009.htm
--- up 6 weeks, 1 day, 10 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)