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细胞，都被由脂质组成的“膜”所包围。这些膜内的蛋白质促进细胞与外部的交流，为细胞的生命提供必要的功能。细胞内部的一些专门的生物膜被堆叠成多层，允许高密度的膜蛋白被装入一个小体积中。在植物中，堆叠的膜提高了光合作用的效率，光合作用是利用太阳能促进生长的过程。该方案试图在实验室中产生新的3d人工膜排列，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个蛋白质和脂质成分，并将它们重新组合成固体表面上堆叠的模型膜。通常参与光合作用的蛋白质将被用来制造定义明确的人造植物样膜，然后可以用来探索受控环境下的自然过程。他们的目标是(1)生成这些富含光合植物蛋白质的堆叠膜的阵列模式，(2)研究这些模型膜中的组装和蛋白质组织如何发生，以告知我们自然系统。此外，这些可控的、堆叠的膜模式有望在现代纳米器件中得到应用，例如生物传感器。这项研究将由Peter Adams领导，他是利兹大学分子和纳米物理（MNP）小组的科学家，该小组由Stephen Evans教授领导，他们都有人工膜的经验。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针“通过触摸看到”，可以分辨小到百万分之一毫米的细微特征。基于光的“荧光显微镜”和“光谱学”技术将用于检测光合作用蛋白的光学特性。总之，这些努力有望在三维复杂功能生物材料的控制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.