Associate Professor Lin Youhui and Professor Liu Xiangyang of Xiamen University: using wool keratin as a new photoresist to construct high-precision protein pattern

Introduction polymer patterned surface technology has become a research hotspot in the field of science and technology, which has a profound significance in both basic theoretical research and biomedical applications As a kind of natural biological protein, wool keratin has many excellent properties However, it is difficult to process and shape the natural wool keratin itself, which hinders the construction and application of the micro nano structure of wool keratin Recently, Professor Lin Youhui and Liu Xiangyang, associate professor of School of physical science and technology of Xiamen University, Institute of biological bionics and soft matter, have endowed wool keratin with photosensitive characteristics through simple biochemical modification, and have prepared high-precision wool keratin micro pattern by using it as a bio-based photoresist and combining with green and environment-friendly water-based photoresist technology Relevant achievements were published online in advanced materials (DOI: 10.1002/adma.201900870) Introduction to Institute of biomimetics and soft matter, Xiamen University Institute of biomimetics and soft matter, Xiamen University was founded in 2013 In 2015, the Research Institute was approved by the national "flexible materials research and application" discipline innovation and intelligence introduction base (111 plan) and Fujian Key Laboratory of flexible functional materials, and in 2016, it was approved by Xiamen flexible conductive materials and Devices Engineering Technology Research Center At present, the laboratory area of the research institute is more than 200 square meters, including chemical laboratory, biological cell room, analysis and testing center, clean room, etc.; the total amount of equipment is about 30 million yuan, which can provide the instruments and equipment needed for the international advanced level of nano functional material synthesis and characterization, functional device preparation and testing, renewable function development and other experiments It has very complete experimental equipment and very superior experimental conditions And with the world-class universities and famous scholars, we have established a systematic exchange and joint training mechanism for graduate students Lin Youhui, associate professor, School of physical science and technology, Xiamen University, and associate professor and doctoral supervisor of biomimetic and Soft Matter Research Institute, graduated from the national science and chemistry base class of Fuzhou University in 2008 Graduated from Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013 He is mainly engaged in the research of bio based composite functional materials and bio bionic materials He has published 53 academic papers, has been cited nearly 3000 times by others, 8 papers have been cited more than 100 times for a single article, 41 papers have an impact factor of more than 5, and the h-index is 26 Among them, as the first author or corresponding author, 24 papers have been published in high water level journals such as acc chem Res., SCI Adv., J am Chem SOC., angel Chem Int ed, adv.mater., adv funct Mater., trends biotechnology, chem SCI., NPG Asia mater., small, biomaterials, 18 papers in JCR area I of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and 15 papers with impact factors greater than 8 He has won the excellent doctoral thesis of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the excellent award of the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Tang Aoqing scholarship of Jilin University, and the first prize of the scientific progress of Jilin Province (4 / 10) He presided over general programs of National Natural Science Foundation of China, outstanding youth fund of Fujian Province, Youth Science Fund of National Natural Science Foundation of China, and doctoral program of Guangdong Natural Science Foundation Prof Liu Xiangyang joined Xiamen University as a national distinguished professor in 2012 Now he is the vice president of the school of physical science and technology of Xiamen University, the president of the Institute of biomimetics and soft matter of Xiamen University, and the national "111 ”Plan - director of flexible materials research and application innovation intelligence introduction base, director of Fujian Key Laboratory of flexible functional materials, director of Xiamen flexible conductive materials and Devices Engineering Technology Research Center Professor Liu Xiangyang is also a chair professor of Yangtze River scholars of the Ministry of education Professor Liu Xiangyang is an internationally renowned scholar in biophysics, biomimetic materials, flexible materials, flexible intelligent wearable sensors, crystal growth, surface and colloidal science He has published more than 300 SCI papers, including 3 Nature papers and 4 English Monographs He has made more than 140 conference reports and invitation reports at international and domestic academic conferences and seminars, and has hosted nearly 30 international conferences Cutting edge research achievements: using wool keratin as a new photoresist to construct high-precision protein pattern, high-precision natural polymer micro pattern has an important application prospect in cell culture, tissue engineering, optical devices and other fields Therefore, micro pattern processing technology has become a research hotspot in the field of science and technology At present, a variety of bottom-up or top-down processing technologies have been developed, among which lithography is an early and widely used micro manufacturing technology in the field of micro manufacturing because it does not need direct contact with samples or harsh high temperature and pressure conditions At present, in the process of preparing polymer micro pattern, it is necessary to use toxic strong polar chemical reagent (such as hexafluoroisopropanol) as solvent or developer Therefore, the development of new green, nontoxic and water-based photoresist has been widely concerned Recently, Associate Professor Lin Youhui and Professor Liu Xiangyang of Xiamen University have successfully developed a new type of wool keratin water-based photoresist through simple biochemical modification In the light, the photoinitiator absorbs the photon energy to produce free radicals, which attack the wool keratin grafted with carbon carbon double bond, and initiate the cross-linking reaction, forming a stable spatial network structure (Fig 1) Combined with photolithography, researchers have successfully prepared high-precision protein microstructures of various patterns (Fig 2) In the whole photolithography process, only water is used as solvent and developer, which is in sharp contrast with traditional photolithography, and has considerable environmental and safety benefits Figure 1 Schematic diagram of multi-level structure of wool fiber and crosslinking principle of modified wool keratin (source: adv.mater.) Figure 2 A) simple flow chart of water-based photolithography; B-M) scanning electron microscope image of different keratin patterns (source: adv.mater.) through a series of cytotoxic experiments, immunogenicity experiments proved The prepared keratin photoresist is green and non-toxic, and will not cause apoptosis and immune response In addition, the team also verified the potential of water-based keratin photoresist composite functionalization by adding nanoparticles, natural enzymes and fluorescent dyes, providing a new research idea for the development of new functional protein micropatterns, which is expected to be further applied to the fields of biosensors, medical imaging and optoelectronic devices Another striking feature is that wool keratin can also protect the active bio dopant in the process of functionalization The active substance in the pattern has higher stability and is convenient for long-term storage and transportation On the basis of the above, the research team further expanded the potential application of the prepared keratin micro pattern in different scenarios (Figure 3) For example, wool keratin itself contains arginine glycine aspartate short peptide, which has good affinity with cell surface The results showed that the keratin patterned substrate could control and guide the growth and proliferation of MSCs In addition, as shown in Figure 4, through the design of cyclic keratin microstructure, the iridescence effect can be observed at a macro level As a contrast, the part circled in the dotted box is the same design but without periodic microstructure pattern, and the result shows that it does not show any iridescent behavior The researchers concluded that the rainbow color is mainly caused by the diffraction of light by its microstructure The structure induced iridescence effect of keratin micro pattern has opened up the application prospect of keratin biomaterials and soft materials in optoelectronics Figure 3 Optical image and fluorescent image of keratin scaffold used to culture mouse bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (source: adv.mater.) Figure 4 Structure induced iridescent behavior of periodic wool keratin microstructure (source: adv.mater.) This paper was published in the famous magazine advanced materials, 2019, DOI: 10.1002/adma.201900870 with the title of "using wool keratin as bio based photoresist to prepare high-precision protein pattern" The first author of this paper is Zhu shuihong, a 2016 postgraduate of Xiamen University, and the corresponding authors are Lin Youhui, associate professor, and Liu Xiangyang This work has been supported by NSFC, the national program of subject innovation and intelligence introduction of institutions of higher learning, the fund of the Ministry of education, Jiujiang Research Institute of Xiamen University and the president fund of Xiamen University Nowadays, people and scientific research have been paid more and more attention in the economic life China has ushered in the "node of science and technology explosion" Behind the progress of science and technology is the work of countless scientists In the field of chemistry, in the context of the pursuit of innovation driven, international cooperation has been strengthened, the influence of Returned Scholars in the field of R & D has become increasingly prominent, and many excellent research groups have emerged in China For this reason, CBG information adopts the 1 + X reporting mechanism CBG information, chembeangoapp, chembeango official microblog, CBG wechat subscription number and other platforms jointly launch the column of "people and scientific research", approach the domestic representative research group, pay attention to their research, listen to their stories, record their demeanor, and explore their scientific research spirit.