ERASynBio: BioMolecular Origami

该项目由MCB的系统和合成生物学项目以及CBET的生物技术、生化和生物质工程项目资助，是ERASynBio资助的大型合作项目的一部分。研究小组将制定规则，指导由核酸和多肽组成的复杂纳米级结构的设计，并利用这些规则创造自然界中从未见过的新生物分子。他们还将开发能够组装这些新材料的工具，这些新材料可能被用于控制细胞功能的许多方面，或者创造可以用作传感器或生物制造的新材料。技术：生物有机体能够生产化学物质、材料和分子机器，远远超过我们的工程能力。这些能力的基础是蛋白质的独特特性，它们为功能而精心进化，允许原子和化学物质的精确定位。设计新的蛋白质是困难的，因为我们仍然不完全了解蛋白质如何折叠一个给定的初级氨基酸序列。在这个项目中，研究人员将应用合成生物学的原理来定义和模块化构建块，这些构建块可以以合理的方式组合在一起，从而能够在设计的大分子结构中控制3D定位。该联盟的成员在多肽和dna纳米结构方面拥有先进的设计和工程原理，并开发了下一代基因合成以促进高通量方法。该团队将在这些基础上设计具有前所未有的形状和功能的生物大分子组装。他们将提供一个扩展的多肽构建元素工具箱；构建复杂生物纳米结构的规则、设计原则和方法；以及合成生物学社区核酸/多肽杂交平台的途径。该项目将扩大设计多肽和核酸/蛋白质混合物的限制，提供一个平台，以促进它们在广泛的生物制造应用中的使用。

This project, funded by the Systems and Synthetic Biology Program in MCB and the Biotechnology, Biochemical and Biomass Engineering Program in CBET, is part of a larger ERASynBio funded collaborative. The team of investigators will develop the rules that govern the design of complex nanometer scale structures made from nucleic acids and polypeptides, and use those rules to create new biological molecules that have never been seen before in nature. They will also develop the tools that will enable the assembly of these new materials that could potentially be used to control many aspects of cell function, or create new materials that could be used as sensors or in biomanufacturing.Technical: Biological organisms are capable of producing chemicals, materials and molecular machines that far exceed our engineering capabilities. Underlying these abilities are the unique properties of proteins, exquisitely evolved for function, allowing precise positioning of atoms and chemistries. Designing novel proteins is difficult because of our still incomplete understanding of how proteins fold for a given primary amino-acid sequence. In this project, researchers will apply principles of synthetic biology to define and modularize building blocks that can be combined in rational ways to enable control of 3D positioning in designed macromolecular structure. Members of the consortium have advanced design and engineering principles for polypeptide- and DNA-based nanostructures and developed next-generation gene synthesis to facilitate high-throughput approaches. The team will build on these foundations to engineer bio-macromolecular assemblies with shapes and functions of unprecedented complexity. They will deliver an expanded toolbox of polypeptide building elements; rules, design principles and methods for constructing complex bionanostructures; and routes to nucleic acid/ polypeptide-hybrid platforms for the community of synthetic biology. The project will expand the limits of the designed polypeptide and nucleic acid/protein hybrid providing a platform to facilitate their use in a wide range of biomanufacturing applications.