Reviewed by Lexie CornerJan 20 2025
Professors Jae-Byum Chang and Yeon Sik Jung from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering have developed a biotemplating technique using specific intracellular proteins from biological samples. The research was published in Advanced Science.
CamBio utilizing microtubules, a intracellular protein structure. The silver nanoparticle chains synthesized along the microtubules that span the entire cell interior can be observed through an electron microscope, and it is shown that this can be used as a successful SERS substrate. Image Credit: KAIST Jae-Byum Chang Lab
Recreating biological structures artificially is challenging due to their complexity. Biotemplating techniques that directly use biological structures have been applied across various fields, but current methods often rely on the external surfaces of biological samples. These approaches are limited in using the structure-function relationships of internal biological structures due to size and dimensional constraints.
To address these challenges, the KAIST research team developed "Conversion to Advanced Materials via Labeled Biostructure" (CamBio). This method enables the selective synthesis of nanostructures with different sizes and properties from specific protein structures within biological specimens. This technique expands the range of biological structures suitable for biotemplate applications while maintaining high tunability.
CamBio combines manufacturing and biological technologies to produce functional nanostructures with enhanced performance. These structures demonstrated superior results on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrates, increasing SERS sensitivity by up to 230 % through nanoparticle chains formed from intracellular protein structures using repetitive antibody labeling.
The team further applied the method to muscle tissues, using a cryostat to obtain samples and successfully producing periodic metal nanoparticle substrates. This approach allows for large-scale manufacturing of biological samples and offers a cost-effective alternative.
CamBio represents a significant step forward in biotemplating, providing solutions for synthesizing functional nanostructures from a wider variety of biological samples. The method has the potential to address challenges in multiple research domains and enable diverse applications.
Through CamBio, we have comprehensively accumulated biotemplating methods that can utilize more diverse protein structures...If combined with the state-of-the-art biological technologies such as gene editing and 3D bioprinting and new material synthesis technologies, biostructures can be utilized in various fields of application.
Dae-Hyeon Song, Study First Author and Ph.D. Student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology
The study, with Ph.D. candidate Dae-Hyeon Song, Dr. Chang Woo Song, and Dr. Seunghee H. Cho as the first authors, was published in Advanced Science on November 13, 2024.
The research was supported by several programs, including the Ministry of Science and ICT's National Advanced Program for Biological Research Resources (Bioimaging Data Curation Center, NRF 2024), the Engineering Research Center (Wearable Platform Materials Technology Center, NRF 2023), the Global Bio-integrated Materials Center (ERC), and the National Convergence Research of Scientific Challenges (National Research Foundation of Korea, NRF 2024).
Journal Reference:
Song, D.-H., et. al. (2024) Highly Tunable, Nanomaterial-Functionalized Structural Templating of Intracellular Protein Structures Within Biological Species. Advanced Science. doi.org/10.1002/advs.202406492