The self-assembly of proteins into functional nanostructured materials offers the opportunity for substantial improvement in the performance of materials such as biocatalysts and biosensors.  Typically, these materials are developed by adopting a protein that was previously optimized for function in solution and repurposing it in a solid state or interfacial context.  However, this may not lead to optimum function of the overall material.  Here, we show a method for preparing protein-based materials in high-throughput based on fusion protein self-assembly.  First, we demonstrate that elastin-like protein (ELP) fusions, originally developed as solubility-enhancing tags, can also be engineered in order to promote self-assembly of the protein materials into block copolymer-like nanostructures, similarly to synthetic polymer-protein bioconjugates.  The design of the ELP block to promote self-assembly, including charge and hydrophobicity, is explored.  Then, we show that the use of the ELP as a protein purification tag enables high throughput material fabrication.  In particular, the discovery of cononsolvency of the ELPs enables development of a precipitation-based purification process that can yield purified protein samples with very low residual salt, producing robust self-assembled structures.  This process can be generalized to a variety of different proteins that are tolerant of the cononsolvent.  The ability to use this technology in well plate format to generate material libraries is then demonstrated.<br/>

Elastin-like protein-globular protein fusion constructs as a method for high-throughput self-assembly of functional nanostructures

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

[Author Benefits](https://scimeetings.acs.org/?utm_source=pubs_content_marketing&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=0320_MCF_NPI_Launch_Spring_Homepage&ref=pubs_content_marketing)

[How to use SciMeetings](https://storage.googleapis.com/dl.morressier.com/acs/SciMeetings-ACSSpring2020-HowToGuide_M3020-Final.pdf)

[Frequently Asked Questions](https://storage.googleapis.com/dl.morressier.com/acs/SciMtng_ACSNMSp2020_FAQ_M3120_Final.pdf)

ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.