Lundbeckfonden - Lundbeckfondens rejsestipendier - De novo protein design: Templating artificial coiled coil structures by an oligonucleotide triplex

Bottom-up construction of functional manmade protein mimics from protein subunits andpeptide sequences through noncovalent interactions is a research area of strong interest. Two orthogonal self-assembly principles, oligonucleotide triple helix and a coiled coil protein domain formation, have for the first time been combined for de novo construction of artificial proteins with unique folding patterns. These results validate the use of orthogonal self-assembly principles as a paradigm for de novo protein design scaffolded by nucleic acid hybridization. With the concurrent DNA nanotechology, this finding may pave the way towards divergent artificial proteins egineered from individual peptides by nucleic acid
scaffolds for new probe and drug development.