Cell-Free Protein-based Bionanomanufacturing of Metal Nanoparticles

在过去的二十年里，人们对合成具有不同寻常的光学和催化性能的新型纳米材料产生了相当大的兴趣。这导致了许多创新的新应用。这项研究的成功激发了人们对纳米材料的极大热情，纳米材料可以解决国家的能源、医疗和环境需求。不幸的是，这些纳米材料很少能够进入市场，因为它们面临着扩大生产规模的挑战，以及寻找低成本和“绿色”或无害环境的方法来实现工业规模的生产。然而，大自然在可重复制造复杂的金属和半导体纳米材料方面做得很好。这种生物灵感将用于在水溶液中产生生物异常制造平台，没有有害物质或极端加工条件。这项跨学科的研究将被整合到课程中，并为本科生和研究生提供研究机会。该项目将把研究与教学和指导结合起来，为学生提供独特的实习机会，并教授他们有关创新、知识产权和创业精神的知识。生物有机体利用蛋白质和多肽在室温下产生单个金属纳米颗粒，而不需要有机溶剂，作为处理生物细胞中金属离子毒性的一种方法。这种生物解毒过程产生均匀纯净的球形纳米颗粒。此外，纳米颗粒的大小、形状和纯度也存在生物编程，尽管这种生物编程的机制尚不清楚。该奖项将利用微生物金属纳米颗粒制造的生物灵感来建立新的生物异常制造平台。这个跨学科项目将包括微生物控制金属纳米颗粒成核和生长机制的基础生物学研究。这些基础研究将确定控制成核和生长的蛋白质。这些蛋白质将被转化到体外制造过程中，使用无细胞技术在活细胞外形成相同的金属纳米颗粒，但生产率要高得多。这些无细胞技术将包括蛋白质固定，蛋白质稳定和辅助因子再生系统。最后，这些无细胞工艺和技术将用于各种尺寸、形状和纯度的金属纳米颗粒系统的纳米制造。这种基于蛋白质的纳米制造将使低成本、高纯度纳米材料的生产规模扩大。

Over the last two decades, there has been considerable interest in synthesizing new nanomaterials with unusual optical and catalytic properties. This has led to many innovative new applications. The success of this research has created a great deal of enthusiasm for nanomaterials as a solution to the nation's energy, medical, and environmental needs. Unfortunately, very few of these nanomaterials have made it to the marketplace due to challenges with scaling up their manufacturing and finding low-cost and 'green' or environmentally-benign methods to make them at an industrial scale. However, nature does an excellent job of reproducibly making complex metal and semiconductor nanomaterials. This biological inspiration will be used to generate bionanomanufacturing platforms in aqueous solutions without hazardous materials or extreme processing conditions. This interdisciplinary research will be integrated into the curriculum and provide research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. This project will integrate research with teaching and mentoring, provide unique student internships, and teach them about innovation, intellectual property, and entrepreneurship.Biological organisms utilize proteins and peptides to produce individual metal nanoparticles at room temperature without organic solvents as a method to deal with metal-ion toxicity in the biological cell. This bio-detoxification process produces uniform and pure spherical nanoparticles. In addition, there is biological programming to the size, shape, and purity of the nanoparticles produced, although the mechanism of this biological programming is not well understood. This award will utilize the bio-inspiration of microbial metal nanoparticle fabrication to build new bionanomanufacturing platforms. This interdisciplinary project will include fundamental biological studies of the mechanisms that microbes utilize to control metal nanoparticle nucleation and growth. These fundamental studies will determine the proteins responsible for control of nucleation and growth. These proteins will be translated to in-vitro manufacturing processes using cell-free techniques for forming the same metal nanoparticles outside of the living cell, but with considerably higher production rates. These cell-free techniques will include protein immobilization, protein stabilization, and cofactor regeneration systems. Finally, these cell-free processes and techniques will be utilized for nanomanufacturing of metal nanoparticle systems of various size, shape, and purity. This protein-based nanomanufacturing will allow for the scale-up of manufacturing of low-cost, but high purity nanomaterials.