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Mg 2+ ‐Dependent High Mechanical Anisotropy of Three‐Way‐Junction pRNA as Revealed by Single‐Molecule Force Spectroscopy
Author(s) -
Sun Yang,
Di Weishuai,
Li Yiran,
Huang Wenmao,
Wang Xin,
Qin Meng,
Wang Wei,
Cao Yi
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201704113
Subject(s) - anisotropy , force spectroscopy , cooperativity , materials science , biophysics , molecule , spectroscopy , chemistry , crystallography , nanotechnology , chemical physics , physics , optics , atomic force microscopy , biochemistry , biology , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics
Mechanical anisotropy is ubiquitous in biological tissues but is hard to reproduce in synthetic biomaterials. Developing molecular building blocks with anisotropic mechanical response is the key towards engineering anisotropic biomaterials. The three‐way‐junction (3WJ) pRNA, derived from ϕ 29 DNA packaging motor, shows strong mechanical anisotropy upon Mg 2+ binding. In the absence of Mg 2+ , 3WJ‐pRNA is mechanically weak without noticeable mechanical anisotropy. In the presence of Mg 2+ , the unfolding forces can differ by more than 4‐fold along different pulling directions, ranging from about 47 pN to about 219 pN. Mechanical anisotropy of 3WJ‐pRNA stems from pulling direction dependent cooperativity for the rupture of two Mg 2+ binding sites, which is a novel mechanism for the mechanical anisotropy of biomacromolecules. It is anticipated that 3WJ‐pRNA can be used as a key element for the construction of biomaterials with controllable mechanical anisotropy.