Tuning self-assembled peptide nanostructure via non-covalent interaction

3^rd International Conference and Exhibition on Materials Science & Engineering

October 06-08, 2014 Hilton San Antonio Airport, USA

Lei Liu

Accepted Abstracts: Material Sci Eng

Abstract :

Nanomaterials, including quantum dots, fullerenes, nanoparticles (zero dimension), nanotubes, nanowires, nanofibrils (one dimension), and graphene (two dimension) possess intriguing physical, chemical and biological properties. As a consequence, these materials form the basis of many interdisciplinary studies, where scientists have been inspired by self-assembly processes occurring in nature to construct advanced nanomaterials with applications in many fields. Self-assembly involves the organization of molecules into highly ordered structures through specific, local interactions among the components, without any external direction. Weak interactions, such as Van der Waals, electrostatic, and π-π interactions, as well as hydrogen bonding, and halogen bonding can lead to all kinds of challenging self-assembled nanostructures. The hierarchical structures of many peptides are attributed to self-assembly, therefore, could potentially act as building blocks for new materials with significant functionalities and a range of biological functions. In our recent work, non-covalent interactions including hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic interaction and electrostatic interaction were employed to modulate the peptide assembled nanostructures. We could successfully realize the peptide assembly transition from nanospheres to nanofiber by tuning hydrogen bond and hydrophobic interaction; furthermore, two dimension peptide nanopatch could be constructed instead of nanofiber by introducing the terminus intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the peptide and small molecules. The electrostatic interaction was proved to play an important role in peptide self-assembly and disassembly. Furthermore, it is significant to be addressed that the mechanical properties of peptide assemblies do changing after the nanostructure transition of peptide occurred. These peptide-based nanostructures could potentially be applied to be a candidate of biomaterials with potential importance in a wide range of technological applications.

Biography :

Lei Liu has completed his PhD in 2010 from National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, China, after that he went to iNANO Center of Aarhus University, Denmark for postdoctoral studies about 3 years. He is the Young Distinguish Professor of Jiang Su University China now. He has published more than 20 papers in reputed journals and 3 patents. He also completed the book chapter of Nucleic Acids Nanotechnology, and involved in the translation of ?Springer Handbook of Nanotechnology?. Now he is also the reviewer of different journals such as PCCP, Nanoscale, and Chemical Communication, etc.