4 ms·
Excuse my ignorance, but how are there carbon nanotube recognizing immune receptors? Do the tubes just happen to fit in the receptors because of their size or s
by cypherpunks01 4y ago
Excuse my ignorance, but how are there carbon nanotube recognizing immune receptors? Do the tubes just happen to fit in the receptors because of their size or shape, or is there something about the tubes that trigger the receptors?
- hirenj 4y agoThe receptors have these floppy loops which are great for bending into the right conformation to recognise different things. It turns out that if they have a few aromatic residues they just happen to recognise carbon nanotubes. It’s unlikely this is something that evolved, and much more just some bad luck in recognising this particular shape.
- robbintt 4y agoWouldn't an aromatic loop have a high affinity for anything with some relatively large / low density (amenable to moving around) electron field?
- maxbond 4y agoSomething that tickles me about this idea is that, if you think of proteins recognizing these small molecules as lock-and-key (I know that model is outmoded), this is the equivalent of a self-impressioning attack (like the Bic pen attack on cheap tubular locks).