Genetically Encoded Inverse Bolaamphiphiles.

Developing new protein-based materials with a programmable assembly is of great scientific interest and technological importance. Inspired by nature's use of post-translational modifications (PTMs) to control the function and location of proteins, we have leveraged lipidation-the PTM of proteins with lipids-to synthesize genetically encoded lipidated proteins with controllable hierarchical assembly. Specifically, we envisioned the combination of two orthogonal lipidation pathways with different regioselectivity and substrate preferences inside to produce recombinant nanomaterials with distinct lipidation domains at each terminus of proteins.