Molecular self-assembly and applications of designer peptide amphiphiles

Abstract

Short synthetic peptide amphiphiles have recently been explored as effective nanobiomaterials in applications ranging from controlled gene and drug release, skin care, nanofabrication, biomineralization, membrane protein stabilization to 3D cell culture and tissue engineering. This range of applications is heavily linked to their unique nanostructures, remarkable simplicity and biocompatibility. Some peptide amphiphiles also possess antimicrobial activities whilst remaining benign to mammalian cells. These attractive features are inherently related to their selective affinity to different membrane interfaces, high capacity for interfacial adsorption, nanostructuring and spontaneous formation of nano-assemblies. Apart from sizes, the primary sequences of short peptides are very diverse as they can be either biomimetic or de novo designed. Thus, their self-assembling mechanistic processes and the nanostructures also vary enormously. This critical review highlights recent advances in studying peptide amphiphiles, focusing on the formation of different nanostructures and their applications in diverse fields. Many interesting features learned from peptide self-organisation and hierarchical templating will serve as useful guidance for functional materials design and nanobiotechnology (123 references).

Surface enhanced luminescence and Raman scattering from ferroelectrically defined Ag nanopatterned arrays

“…[2][3][4][5][6][7] Constructing specific patterns or architectures of plamonic active materials with nanoscale control and feature size is of interest in a variety of plasmonic applications ranging from sensing to enhanced fluorescence. 1,2 Self-assembly is the spontaneous and reversible organization of particulate units (e.g., molecules or nanoparticles) into higher ordered structures, 8,9 which has been applied to produce a wide range of materials with nanometer sized features such as one dimensional quantum wires or zero dimensional quantum dots. [10][11][12][13][14] One application of self-assembly is to make precisely patterned materials that possess well defined properties by organising particles with specific physical properties via external directing (e.g., electric) fields.…”

Peptide self-assembly into lamellar phases and the formation of lipid-peptide nanostructures

“…Lipid-like designer peptides are promising candidates to mimic this feature. A fundamental characteristic is their amphiphilicity, which derives from an antagonistic arrangement of charged (hydrophilic) amino acids and hydrophobic tail residues [6]. Above a critical aggregation concentration (CAC), amphiphiles selfassemble into supramolecular structures similar to lipid mesophases.…”

“…Above a critical aggregation concentration (CAC), amphiphiles selfassemble into supramolecular structures similar to lipid mesophases. Several one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) structures have been reported, including micelles, cylinders, and lamellar or hexagonal phases [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Not only do peptides structurally resemble lipid molecules, but they also exhibit similar surfactant-like properties.…”

Nanomaterials in controlled drug release

“…Because peptides are synthesized from amino acids, the degradation of the peptidebased scaffolds would lead to no immune response and side effects (Kopecek and Yang 2009;Zhao et al 2010). Moreover, these reported self-assembly peptide nanofiber scaffolds are with high water content, mimicking the natural extracellular matrix, and have been shown to be useful in 3D cell culture, tissue repair, and regeneration (Collier et al 2010;EllisBehnke et al 2006a, b;Guo et al 2007;Kopecek and Yang 2009;Ling et al 2011;Zhao et al 2010). One interesting application is to engineer the peptide molecules with side chains of pharmaceutical effects (Zhao et al 2010), and the hydrogel during biological degradation will guide the drug release reactions.…”