Construction of biologically active protein molecular architecture using self-assembling peptide-amphiphiles

The peptide-amphiphiles described here provide a simple approach for building stable protein structural motifs using peptide head groups. One of the most intriguing features of this system is the possible formation of stable lipid films on solid substrates, or the use of the novel amphiphiles in bilayer membrane systems, where the lipid tail serves not only as a peptide structure-inducing agent but also as an anchor of the functional head group in the lipid assembly. The peptide-amphiphile system potentially offers great versatility with regard to head and tail group composition and overall geometries and macromolecular structures. For building materials with molecular and cellular recognition capacity, it is essential to have a wide repertoire of tools to produce characteristic supersecondary structures at surfaces and interfaces.