Polyphenol-Mediated Assembly of Proteins for Engineering Functional Materials.

Abstract

Functional materials composed of proteins have attracted much interest owing to the inherent and diverse functionality of proteins. However, establishing facile and general techniques for assembling proteins into nanomaterials is challenging owing to the complex physicochemical nature and potential denaturation of proteins. Here a simple, versatile strategy is introduced to fabricate functional protein assemblies through the interfacial assembly of proteins (>10 studied herein) and polyphenols (e.g., tannic acid) on various substrates (organic, inorganic, and biological). The dominant interactions (hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic and ionic interactions) between the proteins and tannic acid are elucidated-most proteins undergo multiple noncovalent-stabilizing interactions with polyphenols, which can be used to engineer responsiveness into the assemblies. As demonstrated, the proteins retain their structure and function within the assemblies, thereby enabling their use in various applications (e.g., catalysis, fluorescent imaging, and cell targeting).