Designed Self-assembling Peptide Nanobiomaterials

Abstract

There are two complementary technologies that can be used in the production of biomaterials. In the ‘top-down’ approach, biomaterials are produced by polymerizing homogeneous monomers into covalently linked microfibers, sheet, coatings and other structures. This is in sharp contrast from tailor-made approach, where biomaterials are assembled heterogeneous population of molecules to produce supra-structures and architectures. The latter approach is likely to become an integral part of biomaterials manufacture in the coming years. This approach requires a deep understanding of individual molecular building blocks, their structures, assembling properties and dynamic behaviors. Two key elements in molecular nanobiomaterial production are chemical complementarity and structural compatibility, both of which require the weak and noncovalent interactions that bring building blocks together during self-assembly. Significant advances have been made at the interface of materials chemistry and biology, including the design of helical ribbons, peptide nanofiber scaffolds for three-dimensional cell cultures and tissue engineering, peptide surfactants, peptide detergents for solubilizing, stabilizing and crystallizing diverse types membrane proteins and their complexes and molecular ink peptides for arbitrary printing and coating surfaces. These designed self-assembling peptides have far reaching implications in broad spectrum of applications and some of which are beyond our current imaginations.