A review from the group leading recent rapid progress in de novo protein design describes the successes, identifies the remaining challenges, and heralds the advance "from the Stone Age to the Iron Age" in protein design.
Ten designs spanning three types of icosahedral architectures produce atomically precise multi-megadalton protein cages to deliver biological cargo or serve as scaffolds for organizing various molecular functions.
Computational recombination of small elements of structure from known protein structures generates a vast library of designs that balance protein stability with the potential for new functions and novel interactions.
Computer designed networks of hydrogen bonds allow programming specific interactions of protein interfaces, facilitating programming molecular recognition.
A trimeric protein was designed to self assemble into a 60 unit icosahedron with a roomy interior that might find use to ferry molecular cargo into cells or as a chemical reactor.
Recent research documents a structure-based rational design strategy combining molecular dynamics and single molecule imaging to improve the performance of a DNA tweezers that accurately positions an enzyme and its cofactor.
Chains of monomers joined by non-biological peptoid bonds follow different rules of self-assembly and form structures not found in chains joined by the peptide bonds used to form proteins.
An engineered protein controls the assembly of C60 fullerene molecules into an atomically precise lattice that conducts electricity while neither component alone would.
Computational design of an enzyme that carboligates three one-carbon molecules to form one three-carbon molecule, an activity that does not exist in nature, provides proof-of-principle for a novel metabolic pathway for carbon fixation.
A DNA strand capable of forming a triple helix with a portion of the DNA double helices in a macroscopic DNA crystal enhances the weak interactions holding the crystal together so that the crystal remains stable in the absence of a high ionic strength environment.