• How biomolecule mixtures communicate, in

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Tue Apr 12 22:30:42 2022
    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

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