Controlled Bioactive Nanostructures from Self-Assembly of Peptide Building Blocks

摘要

Molecular self-assembly has become one of the most intensive areas of research during recent years.'11 This is, in part, due to its vast potential for use in many industrial and biotechnological applications. For biotechnological applications of self-assembled supramolecular nanostructures, the exterior of the nanostructures should be coated with bioactive molecules to construct functional materials. Among many bioactive molecules that could be used, coating of the nanostructures with peptides provides unique opportunities to explore the myriads of biological events that peptides mediate. The discovery of a general strategy to assemble functional peptides into stable nanostructures with desired size and shape should be one of the most important issues in developing peptide-based self-assembly systems. It can be speculated that the larger and more highly charged peptides demand stronger hydrophobic interactions for stable self-assembly.