New nanotechnology method reveals surprising results

A significant step forward in the mechanics of controlling chemical reactions has been made by UCLA physics professor Giovanni Zocchi and former UCLA physics graduate student Yong Wang, who have discovered an isolated protein molecule is neither a solid nor a liquid.

The discovery is being hailed as a nanotechnology feat, as a new method allowed them to apply stresses and probe the mechanics of the protein without destroying it. Zoochi and colleagues have made significant steps towards a new approach to protein engineering in previous research, creating a nanoscale mechanism to externally control the function and action of a protein in 2005, as well as creating a first-of-its-kind nanoscale sensor using a single molecule less than 20 nanometers long in 2003.

The results of the latest study discovered a "transition to a viscoelastic regime in the mechanical response" of the protein.

Professor Zocchi commented:"Below the transition, the protein responds elastically, like a spring.

"Above the transition, the protein flows like a viscous liquid. However, the transition is reversible if the stress is removed. Functional conformational changes of enzymes (changes in the shape of the molecule) must typically operate across this transition."