Protein engineering of pores for separation, sensing, and sequencing

Laxmicharan Samineni; Bibek Acharya; Harekrushna Behera; Hyeonji Oh; Manish Kumar; Ratul Chowdhury

doi:10.1016/j.cels.2023.07.004

Protein engineering of pores for separation, sensing, and sequencing

Cell Syst. 2023 Aug 16;14(8):676-691. doi: 10.1016/j.cels.2023.07.004.

Authors

Laxmicharan Samineni¹, Bibek Acharya², Harekrushna Behera¹, Hyeonji Oh³, Manish Kumar⁴, Ratul Chowdhury⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
² Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
³ McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
⁴ Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA; McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
⁵ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA. Electronic address: ratul@iastate.edu.

PMID: 37591205
DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2023.07.004

Abstract

Proteins are critical to cellular function and survival. They are complex molecules with precise structures and chemistries, which allow them to serve diverse functions for maintaining overall cell homeostasis. Since the discovery of the first enzyme in 1833, a gamut of advanced experimental and computational tools has been developed and deployed for understanding protein structure and function. Recent studies have demonstrated the ability to redesign/alter natural proteins for applications in industrial processes of interest and to make customized, novel synthetic proteins in the laboratory through protein engineering. We comprehensively review the successes in engineering pore-forming proteins and correlate the amino acid-level biochemistry of different pore modification strategies to the intended applications limited to nucleotide/peptide sequencing, single-molecule sensing, and precise molecular separations.

Keywords: computational redesign; membrane proteins; pores; protein engineering.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Amino Acids*
Engineering
Protein Engineering*

Substances

Amino Acids