Self-assembling peptide systems in biology and biomedical engineering

Molecular self-assembly of peptide systems is emerging as a new approach in protein engineering, study of protein folding, and protein-protein interaction as well as nanotechnology, polymer science, nanomaterials science and engineering. Self-assembling peptide systems lie at the interface of all these fields. Many self-assembling peptide and protein systems have been developed, ranging from simple peptides to complex proteins. Molecular self-assembly systems represent a significant advance in the molecular engineering of simple molecular building blocks useful for a wide range of applications. This field is extremely broad and is growing at an accelerating pace. The key elements in molecular self-assembly are chemical complementarity and structural compatibility. Several types of self-assembling peptides have been molecular-designed thus far. Type I peptides undergo intermolecular self-assembly while type 11 peptides undergo self-assembly and disassembly, i.e. intermolecular and intramolecular self-assembly, under the influence of various conditions. Type III peptides undergo self-assembly on to surfaces. These self-assembling peptide systems are simple and versatile, while being easy to modify and produce. Such a nanosystem represents a significant advancement towards molecular engineering of protein fragments for a diversity of technological innovations.