Artificial thylakoids: a bio-inspired platform for investigating assembly and organization in multi-layer membranes

所有的生物细胞，从简单的细菌到人类的细胞，都被由脂类组成的“膜”所包围。这些膜内的蛋白质促进了细胞与其外部之间的交流，提供了细胞生命所必需的功能。细胞内部的一些特殊生物膜被堆叠成多层，允许高密度的膜蛋白被包装成小体积。在植物中，堆叠的薄膜提高了光合作用的效率，光合作用是利用太阳能生长的过程。这项提议寻求在实验室中产生新的人工膜的3-D排列，以创造自然界中没有的新结构和功能。一种新的“合成生物学”方法将从细胞中提取单独的蛋白质和脂肪成分，并将它们重新组合成固体表面的模型堆叠膜。通常参与光合作用的蛋白质将被用来创建定义明确的人造植物样膜，然后可以用来探索受控环境中的自然过程。他们的目标是(1)产生这些富含光合作用植物蛋白的堆叠膜的阵列模式，以及(2)研究这些模型膜中如何发生组装和蛋白质组织，以向我们提供关于自然系统的信息。此外，这些受控、堆叠的膜图案有望在现代纳米器件中应用，如生物传感器。这项研究将由彼得·亚当斯领导，他是利兹大学分子和纳米物理(MNP)小组的科学家，由斯蒂芬·埃文斯教授领导，他们都有人工膜方面的经验。谢菲尔德大学的合作者马特·约翰逊博士和C·尼尔·亨特教授是光合作用方面的专家，他们将提供组装这些膜所需的纯化植物蛋白。他们将使用最先进的“原子力显微镜”在纳米尺度上可视化膜蛋白的排列，并确定它们的空间组织。这项技术使用一个锋利的探头来“通过触摸看到”，可以分辨出小到百万分之一毫米的微小特征。基于光的“荧光显微镜”和“光谱”技术将被用来检测光合作用蛋白的光学性质。总而言之，这些努力有望在三维、复杂、功能生物材料的可控设计方面取得实质性进展。

All biological cells, from simple bacteria to human ones, are surrounded by 'membranes' comprised of lipids. Proteins within these membranes facilitate communication between the cell and its exterior, providing functions essential for the life of the cell. Some specialized biological membranes in cells' interior are stacked into multi-layers, allowing a high density of membrane proteins to be packed into a small volume. In plants, stacked membranes enhance the efficiency of photosynthesis, the process used to harness solar energy for growth. This proposal seeks to generate new 3-D arrangements of artificial membranes in the laboratory, to create new structures and functions not found in Nature. A new "synthetic biology" approach will take the individual protein and lipid components from cells and recombine them into model stacked membranes on solid surfaces. Proteins normally involved in photosynthesis will be used to create well-defined artificial plant-like membranes which can then be used to explore natural processes in a controlled environment. They aim to (1) generate array-patterns of these stacked membranes rich in photosynthetic plant proteins, and (2) to investigate how assembly and protein organisation occurs in these model membranes to inform us on natural systems. Furthermore, these controlled, stacked membrane patterns are expected to have applications in modern nano-devices, such as biosensors.The research will be led by Peter Adams, a scientist in the Molecular and Nanoscale Physics (MNP) group headed by Prof. Stephen Evans, at the University of Leeds, all experienced with artificial membranes. Collaborators at the University of Sheffield, Dr. Matt Johnson and Prof. C. Neil Hunter, are specialists in photosynthesis and will provide the purified plant proteins needed to assemble these membranes. They will use state-of-the-art "atomic force microscopy" to visualize the arrangement of membrane proteins at the nano-scale and determine their spatial organization. This technique uses a sharp probe to "see by touch" and can resolve minute features as small as one-millionth of a millimeter. Light-based "fluorescence microscopy" and "spectroscopy" techniques will be used to detect the optical properties of the photosynthesis proteins.In conclusion, these efforts are expected to make substantial advances in the controlled design of 3-D, complex, functional biomaterials.