Chameleon-like Self-Assembling Peptides for Adaptable Biorecognition Nanohybrids

We present here the development of adaptable hybrid materials in which self-assembling peptides Can sense the diameter/curvature of carbon nanotubes and then adjust their overall structures from disordered states to alpha-helices, and vice versa. The peptides within the hybrid materials show exceptionally high thermal-induced conformational stability and molecular recognition capability for target RNA. This study shows that the context-dependent protein folding effects can be realized in artificial nanosystems and provides aproof of principle that nanohybrid materials decorated with structured and adjustable peptide units can be fabricated using our strategy, from which smart and responsive organic/inorganic hybrid materials capable of sensing and controlling diverse biological molecular recognition events can be developed.