Designing collagen-inspired template-[protein]3-hybrids: From switchable high molecular weight nanostructures towards processing collageneous materials for cell culture.

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Objectives of the joint project are the synthesis of collagen-inspired, template-protein hybrids with high molecular weight. Switchable templates enable activation of self-assembly into anisotropic nano-objects with collageneous triple helices. The processing of these objects to fibers, nonwovens or films will provide macroscopic nanostructured materials with directional internal structure.Recombinant protein production of collageneous single strands will be combined with organic synthesis of templates to predefine structure formation. The use of switchable templates should allow regulation of triple helix formation and thus enables activation of anisotropic nanoobjects.As part of the project, the template-directed self-assembly of collageneous tripelhelices will be integrated into processing methods such as wet-, electrospinning or cast molding, connecting the nanoscale self-assembly with macroscopic processing. Thereby, macroscopic-nanostructured materials with nematic fine structure will be constructed. It is important to characterize both the hierarchical structural levels and the anisotropic mechanical properties of those materials.The production and processing of larger quantities of uniformly defined template-protein-hybrids will not only contribute to the fundamental understanding of controlled soft matter structure formation processes and of processing of nanostructured materials, but will also enable access to biomaterials. The latter will be investigated in an initial study, elucidating material-cell interactions.