Novel Collagen Analogs with Multicopy Mucin-Type Sequences for Multifunctional Enhancement Properties Using SUMO Fusion Tags

Multifunctional enhanced collagen materials in green biomanufacturing are highly desired yet challenging due to the poor comprehensive performance caused by the adoption of targeting monofunctional peptides. Herein, novel collagen analog design strategy using multicopy tandem of mucin-type sequence (GAPGAPGSQGAPGLQ) derived from human COL1α1 to construct basic building blocks is reported, in which SUMO tag is added to the N-terminal of the protein as a stabilizing core. In particular, novel collagen analogs (named S1506, S1511, S1523, and S1552) with multicopy mucin-type sequences (repeated 6, 11, 23, and 52 times), which were constructed in Escherichia coli, have distinct orientation preferences of functional enhancement (including cell proliferation, differentiation, migration, antioxidant activity, and anti-inflammatory property) compared to COL1α1 in HaCaT and THP-1 cell experiments due to variant three-dimensional structures (the different-length mucin-type polypeptide chains wind around central SUMO tag). Our findings suggest that the innovative protein design and synthesis approaches employed in the construction of these novel S15 proteins have the potential to advance the development of new types of recombinant collagen analogs.