Flagellar display of bone-protein-derived peptides for studying peptide-mediated biomineralization.

A bacterial flagellum is self-assembled primarily from thousands of flagellin (FliC), a protein subunit. A foreign peptide can be fully displayed on the surface of the flagellum through inserting it into every constituent protein subunit. To shed light on the role of bone proteins during the nucleation of hydroxyapatite (HAP), representative domains from type I collagen, including part of the N-,C-terminal, N-,C-zone around the hole zone and an eight repeat unit Gly-Pro-Pro (GPP8) sequence similar to the central sequence of type I collagen, were separately displayed on the surface of the flagella. Moreover, eight negatively charged, contiguous glutamic acid residues (E8) and two other characteristic sequences derived from a representative noncollagenous protein called bone sialoprotein (BSP) were also displayed on flagella. After being incubated in an HAP supersaturated precursor solution, flagella displaying E8 or GPP8 sequences were found to be coated with a layer of HAP nanocrystals. Very weak or no nucleation was observed on flagella displaying other peptides being tested. We also found that calcium ions can induce the assembly of the negatively charged E8 flagella into bundles mimicking collagen fibers, followed by the formation of HAP nanocrystals with the crystallographic c axis preferentially aligned with long axis of flagella, which is similar to that along the collagen fibrils in bone. This work demonstrates that because of the ease of the peptide display on flagella and the self-assembly of flagella, flagella can serve as a platform for studying biomineralization and as a building block to generate bonelike biomaterials.

Morphology-controlled synthesis of silica nanotubes through pH- and sequence-responsive morphological change of bacterial flagellar biotemplates.

Bacterial flagella are naturally-occurring self-assembling protein nanofibers protruding from the bacterial surface to assist the swimming of bacteria. They are rigid and exhibit diverse morphologies depending on the ionic strength, the pH values, temperature, and subunit sequences. Here, the silica nanotubes (SNTs) with controllable morphologies were synthesized using flagella as biological templates in aqueous solution under mild conditions. The morphologies and surface features of flagella-templated SNTs can be simply tuned by adjusting the pH value or surface chemistry of flagella by peptide display. A variety of different morphologies (coiled, straight, and curly with different wavelengths) and surface features (smooth, rough, granular and pear-necklace-like) of SNTs were obtained. When pH varies from acidic to alkaline conditions, in general, SNTs varied from bundled coiled, to characteristic sinusoidal waves, helical, and straight morphology. Under genetic control, flagella displaying negatively-charged peptides exhibited thinner layer of silica condensation but rough surface. However, flagella with positively-charged peptide inserts induced the deposition of thicker silica shell with smooth surface. Incorporation of hydroxyl bearing amino acid residues such as Ser into the peptide displayed on flagella highly enhanced the biotemplated deposition of silica. This work suggests that bacterial flagella are promising biotemplates for developing an environmentally-benign and cost-efficient approach to morphology-controlled synthesis of nanotubes. Moreover, the dependency of the thickness of the silica shell on the peptides displayed on flagella helps us to further understand the mechanism of biomimetic nucleation of silica on biological templates.