Boat shaped by design

A miniature protein with a stable folded boat-shaped structure has been designed by a team of Indian chemists.

Nature’s protein structures are diverse but use only the L-amino acids. Motivated by the idea that using D-amino acids as well would vastly increase the number of protein structures available, Susheel Durani and colleagues from the Indian Institute of Technology and the Central Drug Research Institute prepared their new peptide.

By carefully selecting 20 amino acids whose relative configurations would make the protein fold in a pre-defined way they were able to make a boat-shaped peptide. Various analyses show that the predicted shape exists in aqueous solution.

Durani hopes to develop the molecular boat as ’a bidentate receptor that is capable of holding a ligand in its active site while itself docking on a defined external surface based on molecular recognition’.

Caroline Evans