Pepticombisomes: Biomimetic Vesicles Crafted From Recombinant Supercharged Polypeptides with Uniformly Distributed Side-Chains.

ABSTRACT: Cell membranes play a key role in bottom-up synthetic biology, as they enable interaction control, transport, and other essential functions. These ultra-thin, flexible, yet stable structures form through the self-assembly of lipids and proteins. While liposomes are common mimics, their synthetic membranes often fail to replicate natural properties due to poor structural control. To address this, pepticombs are introduced, a new family of supramolecular building blocks. They are synthesized by regularly appending anionic surfactants with lipid-long alkyl tails to cationic amino acid residues of recombinant elastin-like supercharged unfolded polypeptides (SUPs). Using microscopy techniques and molecular dynamics simulations, the formation of giant unilamellar vesicles, termed pepticombisomes

SUBMITTER: Soder D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12005736 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature