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Method For Fabricating Two-Dimensional Protein Crystals

Technology Application

The 2D crystalline protein materials generated have diverse potential applications including the following: 1) Fabrication of self-assembled, chemically dense, lab-on-a-chip platforms for sensing, diagnostics, vaccine development, and drug delivery, 2) Fabrication of molecular membranes for sieving and filtration, 3) Fabrication of molecular templates that provide 5-100 nm spatial resolution for patterning and deposition (which is a length scale that is hard to attain with diffraction-based methods), 4) Stabilization of enzymes and proteins of commercial value, and 5) Fabrication of crystalline molecular scaffolds for macromolecular structure determination by 2D crystallography and electron microscopy.

Detailed Technology Description

Scientists at UC San Diego have developed a highly efficient/expeditious design strategy for the fabrication of single layered, ultra-low defect 2D crystalline materials out of protein building blocks.  The 2D crystalline materials are essentially defect-free and self-assemble in an unsupported fashion in solution.  They also offer a better strategy because of their simplicity, low cost nature, effectiveness, and potential generalizability.

Others

Related Materials

Chemically Directed Self-Assembly of Protein Superstructures. F. Akif Tezcan. Biomolecular Materials Principal Investigators’ Meeting–2015, August 3–5, 2015, Hilton Washington DC North/Gaithersburg, Gaithersburg, MD. p221.

Tech ID/UC Case

25324/2015-321-0

Related Cases

2015-321-0

*Abstract

2D crystalline materials possess high surface area-to-volume ratios, light and can be very porous. These properties have rendered synthetic 2D materials immensely attractive in applications including electronics, sensing, coating, filtration and catalysis. The rational design of self-assembling 2D crystals remains a considerable challenge and a very active area of development. The existing methods for the bottom-up fabrication of biological or non-biological 2-D crystalline materials are not generalizable and scalable. 2D protein design strategies, in particular, require extensive computational work and costly protein engineering. In addition, these strategies have low success rates, the resulting materials contain large defects, and are multi-layered and therefore not appropriate for scaling or materials-applications. Moreover, these strategies often require the presence of lipids for supported assembly.

*IP Issue Date

Jan 19, 2017

*Principal Investigator

Name: Yuta Suzuki

Department:

Name: Faik Akif Tezcan

Department:

Country/Region

USA