Amyloid-Mediated Fabrication of Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Materials and Their Biomedical Applications

Protein assembly with ordered architecture plays an important role in the formation of natural organic-inorganic hybrid materials, and also determines their distinguished mechanical, optical, and biochemical properties. Nevertheless, it has been a huge challenge to synthesize materials with hierarchical structure accurately mimicking the natural hybrid materials in vitro. In the past decade, protein amyloid aggregates, due to their diverse and controllable nanostructures and unique properties, have been developed as superior templates or building blocks to fabricate functional organic-inorganic hybrid materials, and applications of these hybrids especially in the field of biomedicine have been also intensively exploited. In this work, the formation process of protein amyloid aggregates and their final distinctive nanostructures are briefly introduced. The mediation of amyloid aggregates on incorporating inorganic nanomaterials and the resultant 1D, 2D, and 3D organic-inorganic hybrid materials are then summarized. In addition, the biomedical applications of these hybrid materials in drug delivery, biomineralization, bioimaging, and biosensors, and cell culture are exemplified. Finally, the challenges and the future research directions on amyloids-based organic-inorganic hybrid materials are prospected.