The Self-Assembly of Helical Peptide Building Blocks

The self-assembly of peptide building blocks represents a central direction in bionanotechnology. A beta-sheet secondary structure serves as the basis of numerous peptide-based bionanomaterials owing to their association with several neurodegenerative diseases. Although the alpha-helix embodies the most common secondary structure motif in proteins, the utilization of this module as a building block for supramolecular aggregation is much less explored. In this Focus Review, we will discuss the advancement made so far to induce higher level organization in helical peptide building blocks. The primary design strategies involving coiled coil proteins mimetic approaches, incorporation of noncoded and synthetic amino acids and conjugation of peptides to aliphatic alkyl tails will be dealt with in detail. In parallel, we will also outline the self-assembled materials developed in these progressions. Finally, possible future prospects of such assembly modules will be briefed.