As one of the most complex self-assembly systems in nature, insect epidermis contains hundreds of epidermal proteins, which provides infinite possibilities for screening insect epidermal protein peptides (ICP) with self-assembly potential. Recently, Professor Liu Tian of Dalian University of Technology, in collaboration with Professor Yang Qing of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Gao Huajian of Tsinghua University and Associate Professor Yu Jing of Nanyang University of Technology, made breakthroughs in the self-assembly mechanism of insect epidermal proteins and related applications. Relevant achievements were published in Nature Nanotechnology.
Corn borer is a class of crop diseases and pests in China. Its boring characteristics are one of the main reasons for its difficult control, and the hard head shell is the main organ to play its boring function. The authors found 233 kinds of epidermal proteins from the transcriptome of the head epidermis of the Asian corn borer, Ostrinia furnacalis, and screened 9 kinds of ICP with repetitive sequences. It is very rare that three of these ICPs (WA30, VV30 and NS36) can spontaneously assemble into nanocapsules in the mixed solvent of water and acetone without adding any templates.
The results showed that the formation of peptide based nanocapsules benefited from the solvent concentration gradient self-assembly technology. When ICP aqueous solution is mixed with acetone, liquid-liquid phase separation will occur. ICP nanocapsules can be prepared by a simple solvent replacement process, and have some unique advantages in drug delivery. This theory can explain the epidermal protein assembly mechanism in the dehydration process of insect new epidermis to a certain extent, and provide a new idea for clarifying the mechanism of insect epidermis formation. In addition, ICP nanocapsules degrade slowly in human body, which can improve drug release with low side effects.
The ICP nanocapsules studied and prepared have great application prospects in tumor treatment, gene therapy and vaccine delivery.
Relevant paper information: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-024-01654-w
