Genetically Engineered Elastomeric Polymer Network through Protein Zipper Assembly

The rich palette of chemical and functional diversity found within peptides has driven the recent interest in bottom-up assembly of soft polypeptide-based materials. Herein, we describe the creation of a novel helix-elastin like polymer or HELP. HELP marries the specificity of coiled-coil interactions with the elasticity and stimuli-responsive behavior of elastin, a class of polymers with extraordinary elasticity. We used Rosetta to computationally design highly specific protein helical zippers to connect short elastin segments. The programmed pairing between the helical blocks of two individual chains produced a genetically encoded material that, when deposited on a substrate, formed a flexible and porous 2D planar network with controllable porosity that responds dynamically upon application of stimuli.