Viral Protein Linear (VPL) motor

A motor !!!! or a protien....a combination of these two make up something dramtic that's Viral Protein Linear (VPL) motor...

Researchers focus on viral proteins and study to open or close their structure depending on the pH level of environment. Thus, a new, powerful, linear biomolecular actuator type is obtained that we call: Viral Protein Linear (VPL) motor.


From pulses to motors-------

Proteins are used by living organisms to perform important
movement, transport and sensing functions. The extraction of a
contractile protein from pulses (broad beans) takes us closer to
making fully functional biomimetic synthetic machines.


Knoblauch et al.show that a natural assembly of proteins — extracted from a legume plant
and placed in an artificial environment — can contract and expand in two orthogonal directions1.This primitive biological muscle,baptized ‘forisome’by Knoblauch and
colleagues,exerts relatively large forces in response to small changes in the concentration of calcium ions and could be used as a novel micromotor.


1. Knoblauch, M. et al. Nature Mater. 2, 600–603 (2003).
2) Mavroidis, C., and Dubey, A., 2003, "From Pulses to Motors", Nature Materials, September 2(9):573-574
http://www.bionano.neu.edu/