No abstract

No abstract

Protein-and peptide-based manufacturing of self-assembled supramolecular functional materials has been a formidable challenge for biomedical applications, being complex in structure and immunogenic in nature. In this context, selfassembly of short amino acid sequences as simplified building blocks to design metal−biomolecule frameworks (MBioFs) is an emerging field of research. Here, we report a facile, bioinspired route of anisotropic nanostructure synthesis using gold binding peptides (10−15mers) secreted by cancer cells. The bioinformatics tool i-TASSER predicts the effect of amino acid sequences on metal binding sites and the secondary structures of the respective peptide sequence. Electron microscopy, X-ray, infrared, and Raman spectroscopy validated the versatile anisotropic gold nanostructures and the metal−bioorganic nature of this biomineralization. We studied the influence of precursor salt, pH, and peptide concentration on the evolution of nanoleaf, nanoflower, nanofiber, and dendrimer-like anisotropic MBioFs. Characterization of photothermal properties using infrared laser (785 nm) revealed excellent conversion of light into heat. Exposure of bacterial cells in culture exhibits high rate of photothermal death using lower laser power (1.9 W/cm 2 ) compared with recent reports. The MBioF's self-assembly process shown here can readily be extended and adapted to superior plasmonic material synthesis with a promising photothermal effect for in vivo biofilm destruction and cancer hyperthermia applications.

No abstract

No abstract

Accurate protein binding structure determination presents a great challenge to both experiment and theory. Here, in this work, we propose a new DOX protocol which combines the ensemble molecular Docking as the coarse-level, structure Optimization with the semiempirical quantum mechanics methods as the medium level, and the eXtended ONIOM (XO) calculations as the fine level. The fundamental of the DOX protocol relies on the Conformation Search Across Multiplelevel Potential-energy surfaces (CSAMP) strategy, where the conformation spaces of a funnel-like structure are searched from the coarse level with hundreds of candidates to the medium level with around 10 top candidates to the fine level with the final top 1 or 2 binding modes. An in-depth test for the protocol set up against 28 crystallographic data consisting of HMGR-statins, SDase-inhibitors, 3HNRase-inhibitors, and NA-inhibitors yielded a satisfactory result with ∼0.5 Å root-mean-square deviations (RMSDs) on geometries and ∼0.8 kcal/mol absolute error of relative binding energies on average. A further larger scale validation on the Astex test set (including 85 diverse structures) revealed an impressive performance with a RMSD < 2 Å success rate of 99%, suggesting DOX is a promising computational route toward accurate prediction of the protein−ligand binding structures.

A combination of first-principles thermodynamics and density functional theory (DFT) was applied for the prediction of sulfur-poisoned monomeric Cu/Fe species formed in the SSZ-13 catalyst framework under selective catalytic reduction (SCR)-relevant conditions in the presence of sulfur dioxide, ammonia, oxygen, and water. Differences in fresh and sulfurpoisoned species were found for Cu-and Fe-SSZ-13 catalysts containing one Al (1Al sites) or two Al (2Al sites) in 6-membered rings (6MRs) or 8membered rings (8MRs). The impact of ammonia concentration during lowand high-temperature sulfur-poisoning on Cu-and Fe-speciation was also investigated. SCR-relevant concentrations of ammonia in the gas mixture led to the formation of ammonium sulfates over copper in 2Al and 1Al sites of Cu-SSZ-13, while bisulfate and sulfuric acid species were predicted at these copper sites either in the absence of ammonia or at negligible concentrations of ammonia during low-and high-temperature poisoning. The absence of ammonia in the gas mixture led to the formation of iron-bisulfates at 2Al sites of Fe-SSZ-13 during lowtemperature poisoning, while the formation of ammonium sulfates was favorable under SCR-relevant conditions. In contrast to the facile formation of ammonium sulfates at copper sites of Cu-SSZ-13, only ammonium-free iron-sulfates formed at 1Al sites in Fe-SSZ-13 under realistic operational conditions. The regeneration of 2Al sites of Cu-SSZ-13 was predicted to occur at higher temperatures compared to 2Al sites in Fe-SSZ-13, whereas the opposite was predicted for 1Al sites. The analysis of fresh and regenerated Cu/Fe species was carried out as well. These theoretical results on model catalysts provide a first step in the understanding of sulfur-poisoning in Fe-SSZ-13 catalysts, supporting further experimental investigations to improve NH 3 -SCR catalysts for meeting future emission standards.

No abstract