Robust and Long-Term Cellular Protein and Enzymatic Activity Preservation in Biomineralized Mammalian Cells

Jimin Guo, Shahrouz Amini, Qi Lei, Yuan Ping, Jacob Ongudi Agola, Lu Wang, Liang Zhou, Jiangfan Cao, Stefan Franco, Achraf Noureddine, Ali Miserez, Wei Zhu*, C. Jeffrey Brinker*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Preservation of evolved biological structure and function in robust engineering materials is of interest for storage of biological samples before diagnosis and development of vaccines, sensors, and enzymatic reactors and has the potential to avoid cryopreservation and its associated cold-chain issues. Here, we demonstrate that “freezing cells in amorphous silica” is a powerful technique for long-term preservation of whole mammalian cell proteomic structure and function at room temperature. Biomimetic silicification employs the crowded protein microenvironment of mammalian cells as a catalytic framework to proximally transform monomeric silicic acid into silicates forming a nanoscopic silica shell over all biomolecular interfaces. Silicification followed by dehydration preserves and passivates proteomic information within a nanoscale thin silica coating that exhibits size selective permeability (<3.6 nm), preventing protein leaching and protease degradation of cellular contents, while providing access of small molecular constituents for cellular enzymatic reaction. Exposure of dehydrated silicified cells to mild etchant or prolonged hydrolysis removes the silica, completely rerevealing biomolecular components and restoring their accessibility and functionality.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2164-2175
Number of pages12
JournalACS Nano
Volume16
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 22 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Chemical Society

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • General Materials Science
  • General Engineering
  • General Physics and Astronomy

Keywords

  • enzyme bioactivity
  • long-term preservation
  • mammalian cells
  • protein accessibility
  • silicification

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Robust and Long-Term Cellular Protein and Enzymatic Activity Preservation in Biomineralized Mammalian Cells'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this