Assemblies of Functional Peptides and Their Applications in Building Blocks for Biosensors

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.

Short peptides as biosensor transducers

“…After complexation of Pb 2+ by the sensing peptide, lead was reduced to obtain lead nucleation on the peptide nanotubes. The presence of the metal junctions on the surface was detected as a resistor in the equivalent circuit, allowing unprecedented sensitivity for Pb 2+ in the 0.01-10 nM range [13].…”

DFT investigation and molecular dynamic simulation on the selective complexation of cis-cyclic nanopeptides with alkaline earth metal ions

“…Todays, cyclic peptides are of interest because of their applications in biology, chemistry and material sciences [2][3][4][5]. Different fields of application are such as biosensors, photosensitive materials, antimicrobial agents, selective transporter systems, molecular electronics components and other potential uses in biology, electronics and optics [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Many studies and researches have been performed on the covalently tubular nanostructures over the past few decades, while today, non-covalently nanotubes are in more consideration because of more proposed uses [16].…”

Negative differential resistance in ZnO coated peptide nanotube

“…Recently, bio-template methods of material synthesis have been exploited for the creation of multifunctional materials for electronic and optoelectronic applications. Different biological scaffolds such as virus, DNA, protein, and peptide have been used as templates due to their high degree of organization, ease of chemical modification, and self-assembly properties [8–15]. In addition, their capabilities to self-organize and control assembly in different geometries make them an attractive candidate for fabricating various nanomaterial-based functional devices in one-, two-, or three-dimensions [8–11].…”

“…Different biological scaffolds such as virus, DNA, protein, and peptide have been used as templates due to their high degree of organization, ease of chemical modification, and self-assembly properties [8–15]. In addition, their capabilities to self-organize and control assembly in different geometries make them an attractive candidate for fabricating various nanomaterial-based functional devices in one-, two-, or three-dimensions [8–11]. Some of the reports indicate that the function of the templates is not only to provide a backbone for organization of discrete nanomaterials, but also to create novel electronic effects while being integrated with nanomaterials [15].…”