Supramolecular mutualism

Biopolymers, like proteins and nucleic acid, can guide the design of novel functional materials. In many cases these materials are produced from single type of biopolymer molecule, e.g., either the proteins (or short proteins called peptides) or DNA. We now propose to exploit the next materials generation through the design, structural and functional analysis of new materials made of peptide nucleic acids co-assemblies. We envision that such mutualistic material networks will bring about properties mimicking a minimal ribosome. In particular, we will study how peptide assemblies can help in polymerizing RNA molecules, the replication of RNA-peptide conjugates, and the overall function in a mutualistic cross-catalytic network made of these two types of assemblies. Our approach will present a novel class of materials functioning as digital-to-analog converters (DAC).