Peptide Conjugation for Materials Engineering
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In the biomedical field, peptide conjugation is widely used in drug delivery, vaccine development, and tissue engineering. In nanotechnology, the research of peptide functionalized nanoparticles and self-assembling materials is expanding its applications in the fields of diagnostics, therapeutics, and sensors. In addition, peptide conjugating provides new ideas for the design of smart materials and biocompatible materials, and also has important application prospects in environmental protection and energy development. Peptide conjugation encompasses a wide range of fields in materials development, including biomedicine, nanotechnology, and materials science. Some of the main applications of peptide conjugation in materials development are described below.
Biomedical Applications
Drug Delivery vehicles
Peptide conjugation can be used to modify smart drug delivery systems. By conjugating a drug to a specific peptide, the targeted release of the drug in a specific tissue or cell can be achieved, improving the therapeutic effect of the drug and reducing side effects. For example, PLGA nanoparticles are a commonly used drug delivery system, but they are poorly targeted in vivo. The researchers modified an RGD peptide that recognizes cancer cell surface receptors on the surface of PLGA nanoparticles for controlled and targeted combined delivery of cisplatin (CDDP) and upconversion nanoparticles (UCNP) in lung cancer treatment. The modified PLGA nanoparticles were able to effectively recognize and bind cancer cells, significantly increasing the concentration of the drug within cancer cells, showing controlled drug release of up to 72 hours, greatly improving anti-tumor activity.
Conjugation with Hydrogels as Medical Materials
Promotes wound healing by conjugating peptides that mimic growth factors to gelatin hydrogels. The peptide-gelatin hydrogel significantly accelerates the wound healing process, improves the quality of new tissue, and reduces scar formation. The Kopecok team designed a class of graft copolymers of hydrolyzed polymaleic anhydride (HPMA)-peptides. Two of these peptides can complement each other to form a β-lamellar structure, which can gel the whole system and serve as biomaterials to regulate osteocyte differentiation and hydroxyapatite mineralization.
Table 1. Peptide conjugation service at Creative Peptides
Nanotechnology Engineering
Functionalization of Nanoparticles
Peptides can bind to metal nanoparticles, quantum dots, or magnetic nanoparticles, imparting specific biological activity or targeting to these nanomaterials. With the popularization of solid-phase peptide synthesis technology, the research and application of synthetic peptide-gold hybrid nanoparticles have developed rapidly. For example, Wang's team and their collaborators have conducted a series of studies in the field of biosensing, and they have designed peptide substrates to bind to gold nanoparticles for colorimetric and fluorescence quenching detection of neurotoxins. Peptide-conjugated nanomaterials not only have important applications in the field of biosensing and cell imaging, but also show great potential in antibacterial and antifouling technology, so they have become an emerging research direction that has attracted much attention and has great potential.
Fig.1 Representative applications based on peptide gold nanoparticles since the 1990s. (Liu Xiaohu, et al., 2020)
Self-assembling materials
Peptides are capable of self-assembling through hydrogen bonding, electrostatic interactions, and hydrophobic interactions to form nanostructures that can be used in areas such as drug delivery, catalysis, and sensing. As a novel self-assembling molecule, DNA-peptide hybrid molecules have aroused great interest among researchers. For example, Li's research group prepared a rapidly prototyping supramolecular DNA-peptide hydrogel using the principle of self-assembly, which was first applied to in-situ multilayer 3D bioprinting. DNA has the advantages of programmability, high specificity, and versatility, and nanomaterials with multiple structures can be formed through molecular self-assembly with peptides. However, there are still relatively few reports on the application of peptide-DNA complex molecules, and more application systems need to be developed urgently.
Materials Science
Photoelectric Sensing Smart Materials
Peptide conjugation can be used to design responsive smart materials that respond to external stimuli (e.g., temperature, pH, light) and can be applied to sensors, actuators, and controlled-release systems. For example, Professor Lu's team at Southwest Jiao Tong University used silk, polydopamine (PDA) and PEDOT to prepare ultra-long conductive microfilament fibers (mSF), and then dispersed them into a silk fibroin (SF) matrix to construct a conductive PEDOT-PDA-mSF multifunctional biopatch for human physiological signal diagnosis and diabetic wound healing research. In addition, peptide conjugating technology can also be combined with other photoelectric sensing technologies to be applied to new materials for the treatment of chronic diabetes, wound healing, and post-vertebral disc repair.
Peptides have also been studied for use in a variety of dental applications, including caries management, implant osseointegration, tissue regeneration, vital endodontic therapy, enamel remineralization, periodontal therapy, and the improvement of dental materials such as adhesives and denture substrate resins. Peptide conjugation can endow materials with excellent biocompatibility, making them have broad application prospects in medical implants, tissue engineering scaffolds, etc. Peptides can promote cell adhesion and improve the adhesion strength of implants and have a positive impact on periodontal health when used in tissue engineering. A report proposes to modify titanium (Ti) and titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V) implants to improve soft tissue adhesion and prevent bacterial biofilm formation. The study employed metallocyte-specific bifunctional peptides (MCSPs), which enhanced gingival adhesion and inhibited epithelial cell migration to the top of the implant.
Summary
The continuous progress of peptide conjugating technology has brought new opportunities and challenges to materials science and engineering. In the future, through multidisciplinary research, more innovative peptide conjugate materials will be developed to further promote the development of science and technology.
References
- Liu, Xiaohu, et al., Rational design of functional peptide-gold hybrid nanomaterials for molecular interactions. Advanced Materials 32.37 (2020): 2000866.
- Yadav, Bhavna, et al., RGD-decorated PLGA nanoparticles improved effectiveness and safety of cisplatin for lung cancer therapy. International Journal of Pharmaceutics 633 (2023): 122587.
- Silva, Amanda RP, et al., Recent advances in the design of antimicrobial peptide conjugates. Journal of Materials Chemistry B 10.19 (2022): 3587-3600.
- Kim, Jiwon, et al., Peptides conjugation on biomaterials: chemical conjugation approaches and their promoted multifunction for biomedical applications. Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering (2024): 1-13.
- Curry, Corinne W., et al., Growth factor free, peptide-functionalized gelatin hydrogel promotes arteriogenesis and attenuates tissue damage in a murine model of critical limb ischemia. Biomaterials 303 (2023): 122397.
- Wang, Guiyan, et al., Visible light cross-linking and bioactive peptides loaded integrated hydrogel with sequential release to accelerate wound healing complicated by bacterial infection. Nano Research 17.3 (2024): 1737-1747.
- Li, Chuang, et al., Rapid formation of a supramolecular peptide-DNA hydrogel for in situ three‐dimensional multilayer bioprinting. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 54.13 (2015): 3957-3961.
