Smart Peptide Assembly Architectures to Mimic Biology’s Adaptive Properties and Applications

Abstract

AbstractThe fabrication of peptide-based molecular architectonics and nanoarchitectonics in high-precision, environment-friendly, and low-cost synthesis has drawn significant importance because of their irresistible applications in chemistry, biology, material sciences, and medicine. These new ways for the creation of nanostructured advance functional materials from assembly of molecular building blocks have appeared as the next-generation approach beyond nanotechnology. Generally two distinct schools of thoughts, the “top-down” approach and the “bottom-up” approach, have been employed to fabricate molecular architectonics and nanoarchitectonics. The noncovalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic, π-π stacking, and van der Waals interactions play very important role to achieve the production of nanoarchitectonics from the molecular building blocks. In addition, the self-immobilization based on self-assembly and array formation of building blocks results in nanoarchitectures with soft functions. Among all building blocks, amino acids, peptides, and peptide mimetics are highly promising owing to their wide structural diversity, self-assembly propensities, biocompatibility, and biodegradability. The layer-by-layer assemblies, Langmuir-Blodgett films, nanoporous materials, soft rods, and nanotubes are some of the best architectures for controllable functions. Moreover, the balance between these noncovalent interactions can tune the shape, size, and morphology of the nanoarchitectonics. Artificial enzymes and enzyme mimics are briefly analyzed as examples of biology’s adaptive properties and applications. This chapter mainly focuses on the role of amino acids or small peptides as building blocks to form nanoarchitectonics. Emphasis will be given on both advantages and limitations. The recent advances and future scope in this area will be discussed briefly.KeywordsPeptidespeptide mimeticsSelf-assemblyNano architectonicsFunction