Self-assembly of Nanoscopic Analogues of Lipoproteins

描述（由申请人提供）：合成纳米材料能够模拟生物运输系统（如脂蛋白和病毒）的结构和功能方面，有望作为低分子量药物、重组蛋白和基因的靶向运输系统。近年来，金属定向自组装已成为爆炸性发展的主题，使合成具有与蛋白质相当大小和分子量的离散结构成为可能。这一建议涉及到合理设计的分子单元的合成，这些分子单元可以通过配位键自组装成离散的多面体纳米结构。这些集成将包含悬垂的氨基酸或脂质基团，根据分子单位的自组织，可以聚集在一起来模拟脂蛋白的结构和运输功能特性。这项研究的长期目标是将这些自组装的多面体纳米结构发展成脂蛋白样运输系统，作为疏水药物的新药物递送载体。我们的研究设计也将为合成超分子组件的制备铺平道路，这些超分子组件可以模拟金属酶的内部分子环境，并由此产生新的实用的生物催化系统。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Synthetic nanoscopic materials that are able to mimic the structure and functional aspects of biological transport systems such as lipoproteins and viruses are promising as targetable transport systems for low molecular weight drugs, recombinant proteins, and genes. In recent years, metal-directed self-assembly has been the subject of explosive development making possible the synthesis of discrete rianostructures with sizes and molecular weights comparable to proteins. This proposal is concerned with the synthesis of rationally designed molecular units programmed to self-assemble via dative coordination bonds into discrete polyhedral nanostructures. These ensembles will contain pendant amino acids or lipid groups that, upon self-organization of the molecular units, can cluster together to model the structure and transport function properties of lipoproteins. The long-term objective of this research is the development of these self-assembled polyhedral nanostructures into lipoprotein-like transport systems that may serve as new drug delivery vehicles of hydrophobic medicines. Our research design will also pave the way for the preparation of synthetic supramolecular assemblies that model the internal molecular environment of metallo-enzymes and from which new practical bioinspired catalytic systems may spawn.