Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 5. Optical image of fluorescent self-assembled peptide nanostructures. The nanotubes
were functionalized with salicylic acid in order to enhance its fluorescence following the
method developed by (Ryu et al., 2009).
An interesting approach for the functionalization of biological self-assembled
nanostructures was developed by Kasotakis et al. It involved using a self-organized peptide
building block as a scaffold for the systematic introduction of metal-binding residues at
specific locations within the structure. By employing an octapeptide from the fiber protein
of adenovirus, three new cysteine-containing octapeptides were designed. These
synthesized fibrils were able to efficiently bind silver, gold, and platinum nanoparticles
(Kasotakis et al., 2009). The metallic-decorated fibers are considered being used in
photothermal therapy and in the development of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)
biosensors for detecting DNA by taking advantage of the Raman signal enhancement due to
the presence of silver and gold particles. Figure 6 displays transmission electron microscopy
(TEM) images of metallic decorated nanofibrils.
Fig. 6. TEM images of peptide fibrils after incubating with a platinum solution. (A) Fibrils
formed from NSGAITIG peptide, scale bar = 100 nm. (B) the NCGAITIG peptide, scale bar =
100 nm. (C) the CNGAITIG peptide, scale bar = 500 nm. (D) CSGAITIG peptide, scale bar =
0.2 µm. Reprinted with permission from (Kasotakis et al., 2009) Wiley 2009.
