NSF/DMR-BSF: Peptide Based Multifunctional Materials for Selective Capture and Release of Nutrients and Contaminants

第1部分：非技术总结磷对食品生产至关重要。全球人口的增长增加了对高质量食品和植物性生物燃料生产的需求，导致天然磷资源迅速枯竭。这种磷的不可持续来源的突出表现是，最终，开采的磷酸盐作为农业径流、牲畜粪便和食品加工废物从粮食生产系统中流失。此外，含磷酸盐的废水污染了自然水体，导致生物多样性和饮用水减少。因此，努力促进磷的分离和回收对于保护自然水体和维持全球粮食生产是必要的。这项工作的目的是开发一种可逆的生物分子识别系统，该系统将在有问题的地方去除磷酸盐，回收磷酸盐，并将其重新插入全球粮食生产系统，作为加强可持续利用这一稀缺资源的手段。材料科学中的一个挑战是开发用于选择性捕获和释放关键营养素（例如，磷、氮和钾）和污染物（例如，重金属、有机氯农药、病原体）。这项工作的目的是开发一种新的，优化的，多功能的材料，用于选择性分离磷的基础上生物启发，肽两亲物与超分子磷酸盐识别能力。这些肽两亲物的可调自组装特性将用于设计一种系统，该系统（1）从模型废物流中螯合磷，（2）实现磷的特定释放和再利用，以及（3）抑制可能导致生物污染的非特异性相互作用和细菌生长。该阶段的工作将从设计和合成这些功能肽与疏水共轭，组装这些分子的表面和胶束结构，测量磷酸盐结合的能量和动力学。在这个实验开发周期的同时，分子模拟将旨在阐明实验工作中肽候选物的磷酸盐结合机制，并发现具有改进的超分子识别和组装特性的肽，然后将其反馈到实验程序中。

PART 1: NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARYPhosphorous is essential to food production. Rising global population is increasing demand for high quality foods and production of plant-based biofuels, causing the rapid depletion of natural phosphorus resources. This non-sustainable sourcing of phosphorus is underscored by the fact that, ultimately, mined phosphate is lost from the food production system as agricultural runoff, livestock manure and food-processing wastes. In addition, phosphate-containing waste streams contaminate natural bodies of water, which leads to a decrease in biodiversity and potable drinking water. Therefore, efforts that advance the separation and recycling of phosphorus are necessary for protecting natural bodies of water and sustaining global food production. This work aims to develop a reversible bio-molecular recognition system that will remove phosphate where it is problematic, recover it, and reinsert it into the global food-production system as a means for enhancing sustainable use of this scarce resource. PART 2: TECHNICAL SUMMARY A challenge in materials science is the development of materials for selective capture and release of key nutrients (e.g., phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium) and contaminants (e.g., heavy metals, organochlorine pesticides, pathogens). This work aims to develop a novel, optimized, multifunctional material for selective separation of phosphorus based on biologically inspired, peptide amphiphiles with supramolecular phosphate recognition capabilities. The tunable self-assembly properties of these peptide amphiphiles will be used to engineer a system that (1) sequesters phosphorus from model waste streams, (2) enables specific release and reuse of phosphorus, and (3) inhibits non-specific interactions and bacterial growth that can lead to bio-fouling. The stages of this proposed work will progress from design and synthesis of these functional peptides with hydrophobic conjugation, to assembly of these molecules on surfaces and in micellar constructs, to measurement of phosphate binding energetics and kinetics. In parallel with this experimental development cycle, molecular simulations will be aimed at elucidating the phosphate-binding mechanism of the peptide candidates in the experimental work and discovering peptides with improved supramolecular recognition and assembly properties, which can then feed back into the experimental program.