No abstract

We highlight our recent applications of functional peptide nanotubes, self-assembled from short peptides with recognition elements, as building blocks to develop sensors. Peptide nanotubes with high aspect ratios are excellent building blocks for directed assembly into device configurations, and their combining structures with the nanometric diameters and the micrometric lengths enables to bridge the nano-world and the micro-world.

Peptide nanotubes are integrated with microfabricated transducer arrays for bacterial detection. On each microelectrode of the array, circulating antibody‐modified peptide nanotubes agglutinate bacteria as pathogen catchers and generate an impedance signal on the transducer. The pathogen microarray can detect as few as 102 cells of E. coli or S. typhi within one hour and the sensor chip can be easily reused for multiple measurements.