Our Work Featured on the Cover of JACS Au
We are pleased to share that a new collaborative publication “Engineering a Functional Histidine Brace Copper‑Binding Site into a De Novo‑Designed Protein Scaffold” has been selected for the cover of JACS Au (Journal of the American Chemical Society – Au). The cover illustration highlights the main concept of our study and represents a significant recognition from the journal.
This success has also been shared on LinkedIn by Angela Lombardi, Professor of Inorganic and Bioinorganic Chemistry at the University of Naples Federico II, and the corresponding author of the study.
About the study
In this work, we investigated the design of a de novo protein scaffold (named “miniLPMO”) incorporating a histidine‑brace copper‑binding site.
Our results show that the designed protein replicates the spectroscopic features of natural histidine‑brace sites and catalyzes cleavage of glycosidic bonds upon hydrogen peroxide activation. This was supported by circular dichroism, analytical ultracentrifugation, UV‑Vis spectroscopy, EPR, pulsed EPR studies, and catalytic assays.
This work is the result of collaboration between the Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Italy; the Department of Chemistry, University of Torino, Italy; and the Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Czechia. We thank all co-authors and the funding agencies. We’re also grateful to Alessandra Esposito for creating this beautiful cover art!