Lipid nanotube arrays for membrane protein biochips

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目的广泛目标是开发一类新的纳米级物体-基底支撑的脂质纳米管-以构建基于功能性膜蛋白的稳健混合纳米器件为目标。最近，我们的实验室证明，在某些条件下，许多磷脂将自组装成纳米管时，放置在纳米孔。对于宏观上均匀且均匀堆叠的纳米孔，这些脂质纳米管形成可用于组合测定的阵列。还发现，尽管具有纳米级尺寸，但这些膜的许多性质与无支撑双层的性质非常相似。因此，它是假设，脂质纳米管可以作为合适的模拟生物膜的支持，保护和组织功能的膜蛋白。由于生物膜和相关蛋白质代表了最有吸引力的药物靶标，因此建议在膜蛋白生物芯片中利用脂质纳米管设计。初步结果表明，脂质纳米管阵列似乎有几个优点比基板支撑的双层的平面设计：更大的双层表面积每基板，保护表面污染物，和长的货架期。提出了以下目标。目的1 -脂质纳米管的自组装：提出研究脂质纳米管自组装的机制，以便通过操纵纳米多孔基底的尺寸及其表面性质来获得对纳米管性质的控制;目的2 -膜蛋白生物芯片：开发基于脂质纳米管阵列的蛋白质生物芯片的概念设计，以有效地检测和分析分析物的分子相互作用具有特异性的磷脂膜和膜蛋白靶点。目的3 -脂质纳米管中的膜蛋白：研究跨膜肽、膜蛋白和外周蛋白与脂质纳米管相互作用的分子机制，以便将这些信息用于进一步开发脂质纳米管生物芯片。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The broad objective of this project is to develop a new class of nanoscale objects - substrate-supported lipid nanotubes - with the goal of building robust hybrid nanodevices that are based on functional membrane proteins. Recently, our lab demonstrated that under certain conditions many phospholipids would self assemble into a nanotube when placed inside a nanopore. For macroscopically homogeneous and uniformly stacked nanopores, these lipid nanotubes form arrays that could be used in combinatorial assays. It was also found, that despite being of a nanoscale size, many properties of these membranes are remarkably similar to those of unsupported bilayers. Thus, it is hypothesized that the lipid nanotubes may serve as suitable mimics of biomembranes in supporting, protecting, and organizing functional membrane proteins. Because biological membranes and associated proteins represent the most attractive drug targets, it is proposed to utilize lipid nanotube design in membrane protein biochips. Preliminary results indicate that the lipid nanotube arrays appear to have several advantages over substrate-supported bilayers of the planar design: much larger bilayer surface area per that of a substrate, protection from surface contaminants, and long shelf time. The following aims are proposed. Aim 1 - Self-assembly of lipid nanotubes: It is proposed to study the mechanism of the lipid nanotube self-assembly in order to gain control of the nanotube properties by manipulating the size of the nanoporous substrate and its surface properties; Aim 2 - Membrane protein biochips: To develop conceptual design of protein biochips based on lipid nanotube arrays that would efficiently detect and analyze molecular interactions of analytes with specific phospholipid membrane and membrane protein targets. Aim 3 - Membrane proteins in lipid nanotubes: To study molecular mechanisms of interaction of transmembrane peptides, membrane and peripheral proteins with the lipid nanotubes for the explicit purpose of using that information in further development of lipid nanotube biochips.