Protein-based functional nanomaterial design for bioengineering applications

In this review article, we describe recent progress in the field of protein-based bionanomaterial design with focus on the four well-characterized proteins: mammalian elastin and collagen, and insect-derived silk and resilin. These proteins are important structural components and understanding their physical and biochemical properties has allowed us to not only replicate them but also create novel smart materials. The 'smart' properties of a material include its ability to self-assemble, respond to stimuli, and/or promote cell interactions. Such properties can be attributed to unique structural modules from elastin, collagen, silk, and resilin as well as functional modules identified from other proteins directly or using display techniques such as phage display. Thus, the goal of this article is to not only emphasize the types of protein-based peptide modules and their uses but also encourage and inspire the reader to create new toolsets of smart polypeptides to overcome their challenges.