Final Report Summary - SMARTSTRUCTURES (Synthesis of Smart Virus-like Hierarchical Structures Based-on Polymer-Peptide Conjugates and the Potential Application in Drug Delivery)
The mechanism of spontaneous assembly of microscale compartments is a central question for the origin of life, and has technological repercussions in diverse areas such as materials science, catalysis, biotechnology and biomedicine. Such compartments need to be semipermeable, structurally robust and capable of housing assemblages of functional components for internalized chemical transformations. Bearing these in mind, in this project we aim to construct a protein-based membrane-bound compartment (proteinosomes) with cell-like properties. Here, first we will present an approach to the interfacial assembly of such proteinosomes, then give a detail study about the semi-permeable, stimulus-responsive, enzymatically active, elastic membrane consisting of a closely packed monolayer of conjugated protein–polymer building blocks. Finally show the proteinosomes can be dispersed in oil or water, thermally cycled to temperatures of 70 oC, partially dried and re-inflated without loss of structural integrity, and also can be developed to be a multi-step membrane mediated cascade system by using a triad of enzyme-polymer amphiphilic building blocks. In all, they exhibit protocellular properties such as guest molecule encapsulation, selective permeability, gene-directed protein synthesis and membrane-gated internalized enzyme catalysis.