Peptides are attracting increasing interest as components to build engineered biological materials, e.g., for cell culture substrates, tissue engineering scaffolds and drug carrier systems targeting specific compartments of the body. Selected peptides and hybrid peptides containing aliphatic hydrocarbon moieties have been shown to self-assemble, under appropriate conditions, into a variety of three-dimensional, supramolecular structures with micelles [1,2], vesicles [3] nano scale fibers [4-6] and fiber network scaffolds [5,7,8] as structural motives. These structures provide means of mimicking physiological functions such as ion transport through cell membranes, structural components of cells as well as model certain diseases caused by e.g. amyloids [9]. Furthermore, interactions between peptides and lipid membranes regulate a wide range of biological phenomena, including the translocation of polypeptides through membranes and the cytosolic action of antimicrobial peptides. Recent work by Ghadiri and coworkers has shown, that designed peptide nanotubes can insert in lipid bilayers and allow ion transfer through them [10,11].
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