My families and I are small surface-active proteins. Unlike other proteins, our hydrophobic region is exposed on the surface, forming a region called the hydrophobic patch, making our surface contain both hydrophobic and hydrophilic areas, therefore, making us amphiphilic, which allows us can self-assemble on the mica, a hydrophilic surface, and the siliconized glass, a hydrophobic surface, and reverse their surface properties.
Unlike my siblings, whose orgins are fungi, my origin is Bacillus Subtilis, a bacterium. So that I can be expressed simply and in a short period. This is my greastest strength as a hydrophobin!
I love making friends, and when I make friends with other proteins, I can often help them.
The first problem we aim to solve is related to protein purification, an essential technique in synthetic biology. An emerging approach to protein separation and purification is the Aqueous two-phase separation (ATPS). ATPS involves building a system of two liquid phases. The target protein fuses with a hydrophobin tag, which changes the hydrophobicity of the protein. The fusion protein will thus simultaneously move to the interface of the two liquid phases. However, ATPS has yet to be adopted in industrial production because of two drawbacks: the high costs of fungal hydrophobin and the low separation speed (~10 hours/batch). If we can solve ATPS's dependence on fungal hydrophobin and implement a continuous flow system, ATPS will become a fast and highly efficient method to purify proteins.
The second problem is antibiotic abuse. Over the past decade, the world has witnessed an alarming increase in antibiotic usage. Antibiotic abuse lead to increased bacterial resistance. New super-resilient bacteria impel scientists to develop new antibiotics, which inflicts enormous R&D costs.
The third problem is plastic pollution. Plastic pollution has become a critical threat to the environment and human health. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the most commonly used plastics and a major source of plastic pollution. Currently, we use physical, chemical, and biological approaches to recycle PET. However, physical and chemical recycling has many limitations, such as the inability to achieve closed-loop recovery and a high chance of secondary pollution.
