Protein Engineering: The Present and the Future 2.0

A special issue of Biophysica (ISSN 2673-4125).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 3820

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology, Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems (BIFI), University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: protein stability; protein engineering; protein folding; biocomputation; drug discovery
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Biochemical Sciences "Alessandro Rossi Fanelli", Sapienza Università di Roma, 00185 Rome, Italy
Interests: metabolic reprogramming in cancer cells ageing and neural diseases; metabolism of small dinucleotides involved in the formation of bacterial biofilm in chronic infections; role of nitric oxide and redox metabolism in bacterial pathogens and eukaryotic cells
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Proteins are simple polymers with extraordinary properties of enormous biological and economic value. They are widely used in biological catalysis, as key components of analytical methods, or as highly specific drugs for personalized medicine. Protein engineering uses synthetic methods that allow the application of rational physicochemical knowledge and the power of evolutionary approaches to the goal of creating, in useful quantities, novel proteins that exhibit advantageous properties. In some cases, the challenge is to stabilize a natural protein for cheaper production, easier transport and storage, and longer operational life. In others, completely new properties are sought, which requires a greater amount of design. Significant advances in the understanding of protein energetics, in computational methods for sequence and structural analysis, and in synthetic methods, combined with growing economic and social interest in proteins, claim the logical transformation of Protein Engineering into a predictive quantitative discipline, where success is guaranteed by good design. In this Special Issue we will show, with examples of their application to specific proteins, the most advanced methods that anticipate the transformation of Protein Engineering from an art for practitioners to a reliable technology.

Prof. Dr. Javier Sancho
Prof. Dr. Francesca Cutruzzola
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biophysica is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • protein design
  • computational methods
  • evolutionary methods
  • protein stabilization
  • protein tailoring
  • industrial proteins
  • medicinal proteins

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

16 pages, 7177 KiB  
Article
Adsorption of Heparin-Binding Fragments of Fibronectin onto Hydrophobic Surfaces
by Viswanath Vittaladevaram and David L. Cheung
Biophysica 2023, 3(3), 409-424; https://doi.org/10.3390/biophysica3030027 - 23 Jun 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3099
Abstract
Fibronectin is a multi-domain, extracellular matrix protein that plays a number of biological roles. As the adsorption of fibronectin onto the surface of implanted devices can lead to an inflammatory response or bacterial colonisation, understanding the interaction of fibronectin with material surfaces is [...] Read more.
Fibronectin is a multi-domain, extracellular matrix protein that plays a number of biological roles. As the adsorption of fibronectin onto the surface of implanted devices can lead to an inflammatory response or bacterial colonisation, understanding the interaction of fibronectin with material surfaces is important in the design of materials for biomedical applications. This, however, relies on having knowledge of the molecular-scale behaviour of proteins, which is difficult to investigate experimentally. In this paper, we used molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the adsorption of heparin-binding fibronectin domains onto hydrophobic surfaces. Despite the high similarity between these, their adsorption differs both in terms of the strength and the specificity of this, indicating that relatively small changes in protein structure can lead to significant changes in adsorption behaviour. This suggests that the interplay between protein structure and surface chemistry is vital for understanding the protein adsorption process and the design of novel biomaterials. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Protein Engineering: The Present and the Future 2.0)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop