Dual Enzyme-powered Chemotactic Amylobots

Ghosh, Souvik (2021) Dual Enzyme-powered Chemotactic Amylobots. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata.

Text (MS Dissertation of Souvik Ghosh (16MS050)) 16MS050_Thesis_file.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (3MB)

Abstract

Biocatalytic micro- and nanomotors are a burgeoning class of materials with multitude of potential applications spanning from environmental remediation and active delivery vehicle. In this context, biocatalytic engines (enzymes) as well as new chassis made out of biological building blocks can be unique in developing futuristic biocompatible theragnostic vehicles. Herein, short peptide sequence (utilizing nucleating core of amyloid Aβ) have been used as monomeric building block, which upon self-assembly can form robust streamlined nanotubular morphologies, useful in designing chassis. Such amyloid based nanomotors (amylobots) were realized upon shortening these nanotubes, followed by incubation with bioengineer urease. Active autonomous motility of these amyl Obots was investigated in detail in varying fuel concentration. To incorporate dedicated navigation control, additional catalytic unit (cytochrome C) was installed alongside urease onto nanotubular chassis exploiting diverse guest binding capabilities of amyloids. Chemotactic migration of these amyl Obots were extensively monitored in different experimental set-ups. Thus, we reported design of chemotactic amyl Obots for which motility is powered via urease catalysis whereas directionality achieved through substrate binding event of cytochrome C. As these autonomously motile amyl Obots can actively explore surrounding media to reach substrate rich region, this resulted in increased orthogonal catalytic activation. Such unique observation of active motility powered by one enzyme (urease) catapulting activity of other orthogonal enzyme, leading to boost in catalytic performance can have potential future advantages and hence require much detailed studies.

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