Published on 09 Feb 2023

Chemical Reviews paper - Prof Ali Miserez & Nanyang Asst Prof Yu Jing

We are pleased to share that Professor Ali Miserez and Nanyang Asst Prof Yu Jing, have recently published a review paper titled "Protein-Based Biological Materials: Molecular Design and Artificial Production" in Chemical Reviews. The review paper was co-authored with Dr Pezhman Mohammadi, Senior Research Scientist of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

Abstract

Polymeric materials produced from fossil fuels have been intimately linked to the development of industrial activities in the 20th century and, consequently, to the transformation of our way of living. While this has brought many benefits, the fabrication and disposal of these materials is bringing enormous sustainable challenges. Thus, materials that are produced in a more sustainable fashion and whose degradation products are harmless to the environment are urgently needed. Natural biopolymers─which can compete with and sometimes surpass the performance of synthetic polymers─provide a great source of inspiration. They are made of natural chemicals, under benign environmental conditions, and their degradation products are harmless. Before these materials can be synthetically replicated, it is essential to elucidate their chemical design and biofabrication. For protein-based materials, this means obtaining the complete sequences of the proteinaceous building blocks, a task that historically took decades of research. Thus, we start this review with a historical perspective on early efforts to obtain the primary sequences of load-bearing proteins, followed by the latest developments in sequencing and proteomic technologies that have greatly accelerated sequencing of extracellular proteins. Next, four main classes of protein materials are presented, namely fibrous materials, bioelastomers exhibiting high reversible deformability, hard bulk materials, and biological adhesives. In each class, we focus on the design at the primary and secondary structure levels and discuss their interplays with the mechanical response. We finally discuss earlier and the latest research to artificially produce protein-based materials using biotechnology and synthetic biology, including current developments by start-up companies to scale-up the production of proteinaceous materials in an economically viable manner.

The article can be found via the link here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.chemrev.2c00621# 

About Chemical Reviews
Chemical Reviews is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Chemical Society (ACS). It is one of the most highly regarded and highest-ranked journals covering the general topic of chemistry. The mission of Chemical Reviews is to provide comprehensive, authoritative, critical, and readable reviews of important recent research in organic, inorganic, physical, analytical, theoretical, and biological chemistry. In addition to the general reviews, the journal has published since 1985 periodic thematic issues focusing on a single theme or direction of emerging research. The journal has a 2021 impact factor of 72.087.

In addition to the above review paper, Prof Ali Miserez has published a Comment titled “Peptide-based liquid droplets as emerging delivery vehicles” in Nature Reviews Materials. The Comment was co-authored with Dr Robert S. Langer (David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT & Co-founder of Moderna), Dr Evan Spruijt (Associate Professor of Physical Organic Chemistry at Radboud University), and Dr Jianhui Liu (Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University).

Abstract
Peptides are small yet versatile building blocks of biomaterials. This Comment highlights recent progress in the design of liquid-like microdroplets, or coacervates, based on peptides and produced through liquid–liquid phase separation. This emerging platform holds promise as efficacious delivery vehicles for multi-purpose biomedical applications.

 This Comment can be found via the link here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-022-00528-8  

About Nature Reviews Materials
Nature Reviews Materials is an online-only journal for the weekly publication of Reviews, Perspectives and Comments in all scientific disciplines within materials science. It aims to cover the making, measuring, modelling and manufacturing of materials – thus, looking at materials science throughout the pipeline of laboratory discovery to functional device. The Comments aim to address topical issues in materials science or offer a short, authorative opinion on a scientific area within materials science. Reviews, Perspectives and Comments are commissioned by the editorial team.