Bayley Group

Transmembrane structures from polypeptides and nucleic acids

 

We continue to engineer new pores for applications in biotechnology, including sensing and sequencing, single-molecule chemistry and the fabrication of synthetic tissues.

 

Recent examples include pores containing unnatural amino acids assembled by native chemical ligation, pores assembled from synthetic peptides, and truncated pores that nonetheless form openings in lipid bilayers.

 

We have also prepared DNA nanostructure-polypeptide hybrids that form large pores of defined diameter.

 

Current work includes the preparation of porin heterotrimers for stochastic sensing and pores with extended b barrels for biopolymer sequencing.

 

Selected papers

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Stoddart, D., Ayub, M., Höfler, L., Raychaudhuri, P., Klingelhoefer, J.W., Maglia, G., Heron, A. and Bayley, H. Functional truncated membrane pores. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 111, 2425-2430 (2014).

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1312976111

 

Spruijt, E., Tusk, S.E. and Bayley, H. DNA scaffolds support stable and uniform peptide nanopores. Nature Nanotechnology 13, 739-785 (2018). doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0139-6

 

Review

 

Ayub, M. and Bayley, H. Engineered transmembrane pores. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology 34, 117 (2016). DOI:10.1016/j.cbpa.2016.08.00