Shinning Light on Nature's Raincoat: Understanding the Unique Properties of Hydrophobin Films.
Physical Chemistry of Solids and Surfaces, Material Characterisation
Final Report Abstract
The research project focused on investigating hydrophobins, low molecular weight proteins produced by filamentous fungi, and their behavior at hydrophobic:hydrophilic interfaces. The main objectives were to gain mechanistic insights into hydrophobin organization at the molecular level, utilize advanced spectroscopy to study hydrophobin structure and interactions, explore hydrophobin film properties under different conditions, and correlate them to foam stabilities. Advanced spectroscopy techniques, particularly vibrational sumfrequency generation spectroscopy (VSFG), provided new insights into hydrophobin structure at interfaces. The collapse of hydrophobin films revealed multilayer structures, enhancing understanding of interfacial protein behavior. Understanding the true origin of amide I shifts in protein spectra with VSFG spectroscopy highlighted the importance of nonresonant contributions in interpreting complex hydrophobin and protein data. Additionally, studying foam stability and structure-function relationships of hydrophobin and bovine serum albumin (BSA) foams revealed insights into protein foam stability, particularly at the isoelectric point. A novel developed automated method for foam characterization using image analysis now enables quantitative analysis of foam properties. Interstingly, hydrophobins were also found to potentially be involved in functional aggregates of fungal ice nucleators nucleation, shedding light on biological ice nucleation mechanisms. Overall, the project significantly advanced understanding of hydrophobin behavior, foam stability, and biological ice nucleation mechanisms, with implications for various fields.
Publications
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Functional aggregation of cell-free proteins enables fungal ice nucleation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(46).
Schwidetzky, Ralph; de Almeida, Ribeiro Ingrid; Bothen, Nadine; Backes, Anna T.; DeVries, Arthur L.; Bonn, Mischa; Fröhlich-Nowoisky, Janine; Molinero, Valeria & Meister, Konrad
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True Origin of Amide I Shifts Observed in Protein Spectra Obtained with Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 14(21), 4949-4954.
Chiang, Kuo-Yang; Matsumura, Fumiki; Yu, Chun-Chieh; Qi, Daizong; Nagata, Yuki; Bonn, Mischa & Meister, Konrad
