Titre : Thermosensitive Self-Assembly: With a Little HELP from from Nature.
Cette conférence sera prononcée par la professeure Antonella Bandiera du département des sciences de la vie de l'Università degli Studi di Trieste en Italie. Elle est commanditée par le Centre de recherche sur les materiaux auto-assemblés (CRMAA) et sera donnée en anglais.
Résumé : Several elastin-based macromolecules have been developed exhibiting peculiar biomechanical, biochemical, biological and biophysical properties that resemble those of the native protein. The most prominent is the propensity to self-aggregate in a solid phase from a solution under appropriate conditions of concentration, ionic strength and temperature. It has been demonstrated that this behavior is due to the presence of the hydrophobic domains based on (VPGXG) repeated motifs, characterizing the bovine homolog. In our lab, the regularly repeated domain from human tropoelastin was chosen as a basic modulus to obtain repetitive recombinant macromolecules that were named Human Elastin-Like Polypeptides (HELPs), in an effort toward the realization of a family of biomimetic biopolymers with smart and tunable properties. The functionality of these products can be further expanded by simply fusing bioactive domains to the C-terminal region. Their thermoresponsive self-assembly is triggered by external stimuli, mainly temperature and ionic strength. Thus they represent excellent candidates for temperature switch in many biomedical and biotechnological applications. Significant interest is also focused on the successful development of tailored, bioactive materials that are compatible with cell viability and that could even control cell growth.
