Anti-lysozyme Silverbody Data 2022

Molecular conformational engineering is to engineer flexible non-functional molecules into unique conformations to create novel functions just like natural proteins fold. Obviously, it is a grand challenge with tremendous opportunities. Based on the fact that natural proteins are only marginally stable with a net stabilizing energy of about two hydrogen bonds, we proposed that the energy barrier for the adatom diffusion can serve as a general replacement of protein scaffolds for the conformational engineering of protein fragments, i.e. to restore the native conformations of protein fragments on nanoparticle surfaces. To prove this hypothesis, herein, we successfully restore the antigen-recognizing function of the flexible peptide fragment of a natural anti-lysozyme antibody on the surface of silver nanoparticles, creating a silver nanoparticle-base artificial antibody (Silverbody). A plausible mechanism is proposed, and some general principles for conformational engineering are summarized to guide the future studies in this new area.