Fig. 6.

Emerging approaches to exploit new dynamic proteins for biomaterial applications. (A) Several well-characterized protein motions have been used in some bioengineering applications, but have not yet been used to generate dynamic hydrogels. One specific example is the kinesin-1 motor. Shown here are crystal structures for the K1F1 monomeric kinesin motor in open (PDB: 1vfv) and closed (PDB: 1i5s) conformation. (B) A previous study formed a truncated version of the kinesin motor into cooperative assemblies, suggesting the potential to generate dynamic, macroscopic materials with motor proteins (from Diehl et al.⁴³ Reprinted with permission from AAAS). (C) Protein engineering has been used to confer dynamic, ligand responsive properties into the protein lysozyme—shown here are structures of engineered lysozyme in its guanidinium-bound (upper) and guanidinium-free (lower) states (from Yousef et al.⁵³, copyright 2004 National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A.). This strategy may be used to broaden the capabilities of existing protein motions.