Supercharging enables organized assembly of synthetic biomolecules

Anna J. Simon; Yi Zhou; Vyas Ramasubramani; Jens Glaser; Arti Pothukuchy; Jimmy Gollihar; Jillian C. Gerberich; Janelle C. Leggere; Barrett R. Morrow; Cheulhee Jung; Sharon C. Glotzer; David W. Taylor; Andrew D. Ellington

doi:10.1038/s41557-018-0196-3

Supercharging enables organized assembly of synthetic biomolecules

Anna J. Simon, Yi Zhou, Vyas Ramasubramani, Jens Glaser, Arti Pothukuchy, Jimmy Gollihar, Jillian C. Gerberich, Janelle C. Leggere, Barrett R. Morrow, Cheulhee Jung, Sharon C. Glotzer, David W. Taylor, Andrew D. Ellington

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

69 Scopus citations

Abstract

Symmetrical protein oligomers are ubiquitous in biological systems and perform key structural and regulatory functions. However, there are few methods for constructing such oligomers. Here we have engineered completely synthetic, symmetrical oligomers by combining pairs of oppositely supercharged variants of a normally monomeric model protein through a strategy we term ‘supercharged protein assembly’ (SuPrA). We show that supercharged variants of green fluorescent protein can assemble into a variety of architectures including a well-defined symmetrical 16-mer structure that we solved using cryo-electron microscopy at 3.47 Å resolution. The 16-mer is composed of two stacked rings of octamers, in which the octamers contain supercharged proteins of alternating charges, and interactions within and between the rings are mediated by a variety of specific electrostatic contacts. The ready assembly of this structure suggests that combining oppositely supercharged pairs of protein variants may provide broad opportunities for generating novel architectures via otherwise unprogrammed interactions.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	204-212
Number of pages	9
Journal	Nature Chemistry
Volume	11
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-018-0196-3
State	Published - Mar 1 2019
Externally published	Yes

Funding

This work was supported in part by a Welch Foundation grant F-1938 (to D.W.T.). The authors thank N. Wang for help with building the atomic model, B. Dear for helpful discussions regarding interpretation of DLS data, Texas Materials Institute, part of the Material Science Engineering programme at University Texas at Austin, for supporting the management of the DLS, A. Miklos for helpful discussions regarding supercharged proteins and A. Webb for assistance with confocal microscopy, and the Center for Biomedical Research Support Microscopy and Imaging Facility at the University Texas at Austin for supporting the management of the confocal microscope. This material is based on work supported by the US Army Research Laboratory and the US Army Research Office under grant no. W911NF-1–51–0120 to the University of Texas at Austin and under grant no. W911NF-15–1–0185 to the University of Michigan. Computational resources and services for simulation work were supported by Advanced Research Computing at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. This work used the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), which is supported by National Science Foundation grant no. ACI-1053575 (XSEDE award DMR 140129). A.J.S. is supported by an Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship. D.W.T. is a CPRIT Scholar supported by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (RR160088).

Funders	Funder number
US Army Research Office	W911NF-1–51–0120
National Science Foundation
Welch Foundation	F-1938
Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas	RR160088
Army Research Laboratory
University of Texas at Austin

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title = "Supercharging enables organized assembly of synthetic biomolecules",

abstract = "Symmetrical protein oligomers are ubiquitous in biological systems and perform key structural and regulatory functions. However, there are few methods for constructing such oligomers. Here we have engineered completely synthetic, symmetrical oligomers by combining pairs of oppositely supercharged variants of a normally monomeric model protein through a strategy we term {\textquoteleft}supercharged protein assembly{\textquoteright} (SuPrA). We show that supercharged variants of green fluorescent protein can assemble into a variety of architectures including a well-defined symmetrical 16-mer structure that we solved using cryo-electron microscopy at 3.47 {\AA} resolution. The 16-mer is composed of two stacked rings of octamers, in which the octamers contain supercharged proteins of alternating charges, and interactions within and between the rings are mediated by a variety of specific electrostatic contacts. The ready assembly of this structure suggests that combining oppositely supercharged pairs of protein variants may provide broad opportunities for generating novel architectures via otherwise unprogrammed interactions.",

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Supercharging enables organized assembly of synthetic biomolecules

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