Tunable and Cooperative Thermomechanical Properties of Protein-Metal-Organic Frameworks

J Am Chem Soc. 2020 Oct 14;142(41):17265-17270. doi: 10.1021/jacs.0c07835. Epub 2020 Oct 5.

Abstract

We recently introduced protein-metal-organic frameworks (protein-MOFs) as chemically designed protein crystals, composed of ferritin nodes that predictably assemble into 3D lattices upon coordination of various metal ions and ditopic, hydroxamate-based linkers. Owing to their unique tripartite construction, protein-MOFs possess extremely sparse lattice connectivity, suggesting that they might display unusual thermomechanical properties. Leveraging the synthetic modularity of ferritin-MOFs, we investigated the temperature-dependent structural dynamics of six distinct frameworks. Our results show that the thermostabilities of ferritin-MOFs can be tuned through the metal component or the presence of crowding agents. Our studies also reveal a framework that undergoes a reversible and isotropic first-order phase transition near-room temperature, corresponding to a 4% volumetric change within 1 °C and a hysteresis window of ∼10 °C. This highly cooperative crystal-to-crystal transformation, which stems from the soft crystallinity of ferritin-MOFs, illustrates the advantage of modular construction strategies in discovering tunable-and unpredictable-material properties.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Crystallization
  • Ferritins / chemistry*
  • Mechanical Phenomena
  • Metal-Organic Frameworks / chemistry*
  • Models, Molecular
  • Phase Transition
  • Protein Conformation
  • Structure-Activity Relationship
  • Transition Temperature
  • Zinc / chemistry

Substances

  • Metal-Organic Frameworks
  • Ferritins
  • Zinc