Biomaterials – proteins articles within Nature Materials

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  • News & Views |

    Three protein interaction surfaces are computationally designed into one protein subunit to enable their accurate assembly into three-dimensional crystals with user-specified lattice architectures.

    • Eduardo Anaya-Plaza
    •  & Mauri A. Kostiainen

  • Article |

    The process of protein crystallization is poorly understood and difficult to program through the primary sequence. Here the authors develop a computational approach to designing three-dimensional protein crystals with prespecified lattice architectures with high accuracy.

    • Zhe Li
    • , Shunzhi Wang
    •  & David Baker

  • News & Views |

    Light-activated protein actuators composed of bioengineered motors and molecular scaffolds achieve millimetre-scale mechanical work, which holds promise for microrobotics applications.

    • Henry Hess

  • Article |

    Protein-based materials for soft robotics that self-heal within a second while maintaining the high strength of the damaged area are reported.

    • Abdon Pena-Francesch
    • , Huihun Jung
    •  & Metin Sitti

  • News & Views |

    Materials that permit spatiotemporal control of biomolecule presentation have long been a challenge in the field. A method has now been developed to reversibly pattern cell-laden hydrogels with site-specifically immobilized proteins using sortase-mediated transpeptidation without compromising bioactivity.

    • Jonathan H. Galarraga
    •  & Jason A. Burdick

  • News & Views |

    An injectable biomaterial with angiogenic and immune-modulatory properties was developed and shown to support brain tissue repair and functional recovery in a mouse model of stroke.

    • Anup Tuladhar
    •  & Molly S. Shoichet

  • News & Views |

    Microbial gas vesicles have been developed for use as MRI contrast agents whose contrast can be inactivated by applying ultrasound waves to collapse the vesicles.

    • Jeff W. M. Bulte

  • News & Views |

    A study demonstrates that controlled integrin binding on a biomaterial was capable of promoting vascular cell sprouting and formation of a non-leaky blood vessel network in a healthy and diseased state.

    • Michael R. Blatchley
    •  & Sharon Gerecht

  • News & Views |

    The discovery of a hypersonic bandgap in spider silk could drive the design of bio-inspired and biocompatible dynamic materials.

    • Isabelle Su
    •  & Markus J. Buehler

  • News & Views |

    Intrinsically disordered protein polymers can be designed to encode tunable lower or upper critical solution temperatures in physiological solutions.

    • Alex S. Holehouse
    •  & Rohit V. Pappu

  • Article |

    Cell behaviour is in part regulated by the rigidity of their environment, yet the underlying mechanisms have remained unclear. It is now shown for breast myoepithelial cells expressing two types of integrin that rigidity sensing and adaptation can be explained by a clutch-bond model that considers the different rates of binding and unbinding between the integrins and the extracellular matrix.

    • Alberto Elosegui-Artola
    • , Elsa Bazellières
    •  & Pere Roca-Cusachs

  • Letter |

    High-resolution atomic force microscopy coupled with a frequency modulation method is used to visualize flexible, monoclonal immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies and their interactions with antigens in aqueous solutions. IgG molecules, which individually have Y-shaped structures, self-assemble into hexamers that form crystalline two-dimensional arrangements on a mica substrate, and are observed to retain their immunoactivity within the crystal.

    • Shinichiro Ido
    • , Hirokazu Kimiya
    •  & Hirofumi Yamada

  • News & Views |

    A biocompatible method for fabricating three-dimensional photonic crystals opens up unique opportunities for structurally coloured biodegradable materials, but also for implantable biosensing and targeted therapeutics on the microscale.

    • Jennifer MacLeod
    •  & Federico Rosei

  • News & Views |

    The spreading and differentiation of stem cells depends on the stiffness of the extracellular matrix. Now, experiments on human epidermal and mesenchymal stem cells cultured on substrates with covalently attached collagen fibres show that the cells sense and respond to the anchoring of the collagen fibres to the substrate.

    • Ovijit Chaudhuri
    •  & David J. Mooney

  • Article |

    Bioactive proteins within hydrogel scaffolds used to culture cells can guide cellular activities, but the control of the location of the proteins has proved difficult. Using the multiphoton laser of a confocal microscope, simultaneous patterning of two growth factors, which remain bioactive after immobilization, is now shown in three-dimensional hydrogels. The technique should be applicable to the patterning of a variety of proteins.

    • Ryan G. Wylie
    • , Shoeb Ahsan
    •  & Molly S. Shoichet

  • Article |

    Active gels—such as the cytoskeleton—are out-of-equilibrium networks that self-organize in complex, dynamic patterns. The mechanisms by which dynamic structures form are, however, poorly understood. Now, a generic mechanism of structure formation, analogous to nucleation and growth in passive systems, is found in a minimal active-gel consisting of actin filaments, molecular-motor filaments and crosslinkers.

    • Simone Köhler
    • , Volker Schaller
    •  & Andreas R. Bausch

  • News & Views |

    By combining gene cloning and amplification techniques, a new one-pot, parallel synthesis method for the generation of long, repetitive genes is realized. The method promises to open up the discovery of protein polymer biomaterials.

    • Sheng Ding
    • , Xiaoxiao Wang
    •  & Annelise E. Barron

  • Article |

    Actin networks are an excellent model system for studying the mechanical properties of the cell cytoskeleton. Using microscopic methods, actin bundle networks formed in the presence of the crosslinking protein fascin show age-dependent changes in their viscoelastic properties and spontaneous relaxation dynamics in a similar way to glassy, soft materials.

    • O. Lieleg
    • , J. Kayser
    •  & A. R. Bausch

  • News & Views |

    β-sheet stack structures in protein crystals are held together with some of nature's weakest links: hydrogen bonds. It turns out that the size of the crystal stack makes a difference to its strength — and smaller is better.

    • Christine Semmrich
    •  & Andreas R. Bausch

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