Guosong Chen

Currently, my research is on the interface of macromolecular self-assembly and glycoscience, mainly including three topics: 1) development of protein array with regular shape controlled by protein-carbohydrate interaction; 2) construction of polymeric vesicles mimicking glycocalyx, aiming at immunological functions; 3) control of macromolecular self-assembly by chemical reactions related to sugars. In this presentation, I am going to share the most recent progress in self-assembly of proteins, driven by protein-carbohydrate interactions with the audience. We proposed a new strategy to assemble proteins together in a precise way, in which a designer small molecular ligand, i.e. inducing ligand has been employed. The ligand contains a rigid molecule which binds to proteins. In our case it is carbohydrates, which can be extended to other types of rigid molecules. The ligand also contains a rhodamine part, with its dimerization as another non-covalent interactions to link proteins together. Other supramolecular interactions could be utilized as an extension. By using this strategy, recently we prepared protein crystalline frameworks, microtubules, and 2D patterns etc. We successfully controlled dimensions and morphologies of protein assemblies by slightly changing the linker length of the small molecular ligand. Moreover, the effect of other factors, e.g. pH, on this assembly process will be discussed.

References

[1] Sakai, F.; Yang, G.; Weiss, M.; Liu, YJ.; Chen, GS.*; Jiang, M.* Nature Commun. 58: 4634 (2014).

[2] Yang, G.; Zhang, X.; Kochovski, Z.; Zhang, YF.; Dai, B.; Sakai, F.; Jiang, L.; Lu, Y.; Ballauff, M.; Li, XM.; Liu, C.*; Chen, GS.*; Jiang, M. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 138: 1932 (2016).

[3] Wu, XL.; Su, L.; Chen, GS.*; Jiang, M. Macromolecules 48: 3705 (2015).

[4] Su, L.; Zhang, WY.; Wu, XL.; Zhang, YF.; Chen, X.; Liu, GW.; Chen, GS.*; Jiang, M. Small 11: 4191 (2015).

[5] Liu, YJ.; Zhang, YF.; Wang, ZY.; Wang, J.; Wei, KC.; Chen, GS.*; Jiang, M. J. Am Chem. Soc. 38: 12387 (2016).