Temperature and pH Controlled Self-Assembly of a Protein-Polymer Biohybrid

A novel pH and temperature dual-responsive bioconjugate is prepared by grafting thermoresponsive polymer chains from a pH-responsive protein amelogenin via atom transfer radical polymerization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that amelogenin is exploited to prepare a hybrid biomaterial with new stimuli-responsive property. In both basic and acidic solutions the protein-polymer bioconjugate is able to self-assemble into uniform and stable nanoparticles when heated to above the lower critical solution temperature of the polymer. The amelogenin-based stimuli-responsive bioconjugate may be of great use in the fields of bioseparation and drug/gene delivery, and the synthetic approach reported here should provide a convenient means to preparing amelogenin-based functional biohybrid materials.