Collaborative Research: Experimental and Computational Examination of Biomimetic Peptides Acting as Anti-freeze Molecules

合作研究：仿生肽作为抗冻分子的实验和计算检验

• 批准号: 2203527
• 负责人: Amir Haji-Akbari
• 金额: $ 16.22万
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2203527&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Experimental; Computational; Examination

This award from the Environmental Chemical Sciences Program in the NSF Division of Chemistry supports this collaborative project of Profs. Daniel Knopf and Robert Grubbs at Stony Brook University and Prof. Amir Haji-Akbari at Yale University to examine and generate organic molecules that can control the freezing of water. The ability to inhibit ice formation is crucial in critical technological applications such as preservation of biological materials, food processing and storage, and preventing ice growth on exposed surfaces such as those on aircraft and offshore platforms. In nature some organisms can produce so-called antifreeze proteins (AFPs) to control ice formation allowing their survival at freezing temperatures. This collaborative project aims to understand and mimic those AFPs to allow for generation of designed synthetic antifreeze molecules that can be used in various research areas and industries. This project will train three graduate and two undergraduate students and provide a course module for a summer outreach program for high school students.The team will design AFP mimetics (AFPMs) with less complex structures than natural AFPs that can lead to practical and cost-efficient ice inhibitors and anti-icing coatings. A mechanistic understanding of the antifreezing capability will be sought by translating arrangements of hydrophilic and hydrophobic amino acid side chains found in ice-binding faces of β-helical AFPs to peptide-polymer conjugates covering various length scales from single molecules to arrays of substrate-anchored AFPMs. Ice nucleation and ice recrystallization inhibition experiments will determine the antifreezing efficacy of synthesized biomolecules. Theoretical studies using path-sampling will resolve the water-AFP mimetic interactions on length scales similar to those in the experiments. This comprehensive approach will determine the importance of the location and strength of the hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups and the flexibility of the AFPMs for antifreezing efficacy, thereby advancing the design of biomimetics that influence ice nucleation and growth.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF化学部的环境化学科学计划的奖项支持了这一教授的合作项目。 Stony Brook University的Daniel Knopf和Robert Grubbs以及耶鲁大学的Amir Haji-Akbari教授检查和生成可以控制水冻结的有机分子。在关键的技术应用中，抑制冰形成的能力至关重要，例如制备生物材料，食物加工和储存，并防止在裸露的表面上（例如飞机和海上平台上的冰层生长）。在本质上，某些生物可以产生所谓的抗冻蛋白（AFP），以控制冰的形成，使其在冰冻温度下生存。该协作项目旨在理解和模仿这些AFP，以允许在各个研究领域和行业中生成设计的合成防冻分子。该项目将培训三名毕业生和两名本科生，并为高中生提供夏季外展计划的课程模块。该团队将设计AFP Mimetics（AFPMS），其结构较不复杂，而自然AFP的结构较不复杂，而天然AFP则可以导致实用且具有成本效益的冰抑制剂和抗ic涂料。通过将β-螺旋AFP的冰结合面的亲水性和疏水性氨基酸侧链的排列转换为覆盖肽 - 聚合物结合物，涵盖从单分子的各种长度尺度的肽 - 链接物结合物，从单分子到基质群体AFPM的drays compolets，将对抗冻结能力的机械理解进行感知。冰核和冰重结晶抑制实验将确定合成生物分子的抗冻结效率。使用路径采样的理论研究将在与实验中类似的长度尺度上解决水AFP模拟相互作用。这种全面的方法将确定疏水和亲水群体的位置和强度的重要性以及AFPMS提高防冻剂效率的灵活性，从而提高了影响冰核和成长的生物基础设计的设计。这项奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的智力来评估了支持，并通过评估了基金会的支持和广泛的范围。