Protein-guided Self-Assembly for Controlling Protein–Protein Interactions

Controlling and Understanding Self-Assembly

Monodisperse self-assembly in a model with protein-like interactions.

We study the self-assembly behavior of patchy particles with "proteinlike" interactions that can be considered as a minimal model for the assembly of viral capsids and other shell-like protein complexes. We thoroughly explore the thermodynamics and dynamics of self-assembly as a function of the parameters of the model and find robust assembly of all target structures considered. Optimal assembl...

The self assembly of proteins; probing patchy protein interactions.

The ability to control the self-assembly of biological molecules to form defined structures, with a high degree of predictability is a central aim for soft matter science and synthetic biology. Several examples of this are known for synthetic systems, such as anisotropic colloids. However, for biomacromolecules, such as proteins, success has been more limited, since aeolotopic (or anisotropic) ...

Guided Assembly of Nanostructures via Elastic Interactions

A solid solution can spontaneously separate into phases that self-assemble into patterns. This process can be guided via external fields to form ordered microand nanostructures. In this paper, we demonstrate that notions of interaction energies provide powerful insights into the coupling of these fields with the properties of the alloy. A phase-field model is developed that incorporates chemica...

Controlling RNA self-assembly to form filaments

Fundamental control over supra-molecular self-assembly for organization of matter on the nano-scale is a major objective of nanoscience and nanotechnology. 'RNA tectonics' is the design of modular RNA units, called tectoRNAs, that can be programmed to self-assemble into novel nano- and meso-scopic architectures of desired size and shape. We report the three-dimensional design of tectoRNAs incor...