Artificial leucine rich repeats as new scaffolds for protein design.

The leucine rich repeat (LRR) motif that participates in many biomolecular recognition events in cells was suggested as a general scaffold for producing artificial receptors. We describe here the design and first total chemical synthesis of small LRR proteins, and their structural analysis. When evaluating the tertiary structure as a function of different number of repeating units (1-3), we were able to find that the 3-repeats sequence, containing 90 amino acids, folds into the expected structure.

Synthesis and characterization of Mn-MCM-41--its catalytic activity for the synthesis of carbon nanotubes.

Mn-MCM-41 was synthesized in various (Si/Mn = 25, 50, 75 and 100) ratios, using manganese acetate as source for manganese by hydrothermal method and was calcined at 550 degrees C for 6 hrs. The physico-chemical characterizations of Mn-MCM-41 showed the formation of hexagonally arranged mesopores with high surface area. The calcined Mn-MCM-41 was used as catalytic templates for the growth of large amount of carbon nanotubes.