Synthetic chaperones lead to protein reform

摘要

US chemists are going for gold to fold unravelled proteins. A team at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has demonstrated that anionic gold nanoparticles can be used to reorganise these biopolymers.rnVincent Rotello and Mrinmoy De took their inspiration from nature. They studied natural biological chaperones, which are proteins with surfaces tailored to unfold and refold misfolded proteins, and had the idea to use nanoparticles as their synthetic equivalent. Rotello explains: 'Nanoparticles can be made in sizes consistent with biological chaperones and fine-tuned with a wide range of ligands.'rnRotello and De used nanoparticles supporting carboxylate ligands to fold three denatured cationic proteins, a-chymotryspin, papain and lysozyme.