A mini-review on peptide-based self-assemblies and their biological applications

Abstract

Peptide-based supramolecular self-assembly from peptide monomers into well-organized nanostructures, has attracted extensive attentions towards biomedical and biotechnological applications in recent decades. This spontaneous and reversible assembly process involving non-covalent bonding interactions can be artificially regulated. In this review, we have elaborated different strategies to modulate the peptide self-assembly through tuning the physicochemical and environmental conditions, includingpH, light, temperature, solvent, and enzyme. Detailed introduction of biological applications and future potential of the peptide-based nano-assemblies will also be given.

Keywords: biological applications; nanostructure regulation; peptide-based architecture; self-assembly.