Adhesive Properties of Synthetic Cement-Derived Biomaterials from the Barnacle Amphibalanus amphitrite

Abstract

Barnacles, a ubiquitous biofouling organism, produce a micron-thick layer of long-lasting, proteinaceous, amyloid-like adhesive. Though studied for over a century, there is still no clear understanding of sequence traits that directly relate to the adhesive properties of the bulk material. In this work, we separate effects of chemistry and structural hierarchy by using model barnacle cement peptides (BCPs) that form nanomaterials through patterned sequence motifs. To understand the role of structure, we control the solution aggregation state of BCPs to produce films for testing that have similar chemistry but varied peptide structure.