140 likes | 364 Views
Self-Assembly of Surfactant-like Peptides. Steve S. Santoso, Sylvain Vauthey & Shuguang Zhang Center for Biomedical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nanostructures. Structures ranging from 1 to 100 nm Sub-micrometer science and engineering that combine multiple disciplines:
E N D
Self-Assembly of Surfactant-like Peptides Steve S. Santoso, Sylvain Vauthey & Shuguang Zhang Center for Biomedical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Nanostructures • Structures ranging from 1 to 100 nm • Sub-micrometer science and engineering that combine multiple disciplines: • Chemistry • Biology • Physics • Material science • Engineering • How to build / design nanostructures? • Want the atomic selectivity of synthetic chemistry yet the expandability of engineering • Molecular self-assembly may be useful
Self-assembly processes common in biological systems: • Cell membrane • Multi-component cellular machinery: ribosome • Protein folding • Self-assembly involves non-covalent bonding • van der Waals • hydrogen bonds • dipolar forces • dynamic process
Surfactant-like peptides [Ac]-VVVVVVD Six hydrophobic valines (tail) One polar aspartic acid (head) 2 nm
Preliminary experiments and results • Some condition screening • Use: dynamic light scattering (DLS), TEM • Found larger structures for some conditions:
Cryo-TEM: 300 nm
Nanotubes are not the structure with energetic global minimum:
Nanovesicle RF • Controlled delivery of small chemicals • Use nanovesicle to study replication of biological • materials in an enclosed environment
150 nm 550 nm
Summary • Peptide surfactants are promising substrates for advanced • material and its application. • Cost-effective • Certain structures will form under certain environmental • and chemical conditions • Tunable • Biological origin may be advantageous for medical application • A good system to study self-assembly.