Recent development of peptide self-assembly

Amino acids are the building blocks to build peptides and proteins. Recent development in peptide synthesis has however enabled us to mimic this natural process by preparing various long and short peptides possessing different conformations and biological functions. The self-assembly of short designed peptides into molecular nanostructures is becoming a growing interest in nanobiotechnology. Self-assembled peptides exhibit several attractive features for applications in tissue regeneration, drug delivery, biological surface engineering as well as in food science, cosmetic industry and antibiotics. The aim of this review is to introduce the readers to a number of representative studies on peptide self-assembly. (C) 2008 National Natural Science Foundation of China and Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier Limited and Science in China Press. All rights reserved.