Rational design of block copolymer self-assemblies in photodynamic therapy

• Maxime Demazeau,
• Laure Gibot,
• Anne-Françoise Mingotaud,
• Patricia Vicendo,
• Clément Roux and
• Barbara Lonetti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 180–212, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.15

• different from hydrophobic interactions have been proposed. For example, electrostatic interactions can improve the photosensitizer loading. Mostly amino acid-based polymers with poly(ʟ-lysine) [46][47] or poly(aspartic acid) [48][49] charged blocks have been employed for poly ion complex assemblies (PICs

• the affinity by adapting the amino acid sequence [145], as shown in Figure 10. Porphyrins have also been used in the polymer backbone to increase subsequent PS encapsulation [94]. Another approach to modulate the PS/vector affinity is the use of supramolecular complexes, particularly based on

Internalization mechanisms of cell-penetrating peptides

• Ivana Ruseska and
• Andreas Zimmer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 101–123, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.10

• penetrating peptides CPPs are currently classified in several ways, depending on their individual properties. Table 1 presents a short overview of some of the most commonly used CPPs, listing their amino acid sequence and properties. In this review, only a short outlook of their classification will be given

Fully amino acid-based hydrogel as potential scaffold for cell culturing and drug delivery

• Dávid Juriga,
• Evelin Sipos,
• Orsolya Hegedűs,
• Gábor Varga,
• Miklós Zrínyi,
• Krisztina S. Nagy and
• Angéla Jedlovszky-Hajdú

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2579–2593, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.249

• , Nagyvarad square 4, Budapest, Hungary 10.3762/bjnano.10.249 Abstract Polymer hydrogels are ideal scaffolds for both tissue engineering and drug delivery. A great advantage of poly(amino acid)-based hydrogels is their high similarity to natural proteins. However, their expensive and complicated synthesis

• and the biodegradability of the hydrogel. In this paper, PASP cross-linked with cystamine (CYS) and lysine-methylester (LYS) was introduced as fully amino acid-based polymer hydrogel. Gels were synthesized employing six different ratios of CYS and LYS. The pH dependent swelling degree and the

• (amino acid); poly(aspartic acid); polymer; Introduction The number of medical applications of polymer hydrogels increased substantially during the last decades due to their similarity to soft tissues [1][2][3]. Polymer hydrogels possess properties of solid materials such as deformability and rigidity

Advanced hybrid nanomaterials

• Andreas Taubert,
• Fabrice Leroux,
• Pierre Rabu and
• Verónica de Zea Bermudez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2563–2567, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.247

• high UV resistance of polybutylene succinate containing amino-acid-modified layered double hydroxides” [26]. However, this time with a “green aspect”, since the polymer studied is a bio-based polyester and the organo-modifying agent of the 2D-filler is an amino acid. The same host structure (i.e., LDH

Bombesin receptor-targeted liposomes for enhanced delivery to lung cancer cells

• Mohammad J. Akbar,
• Pâmela C. Lukasewicz Ferreira,
• Melania Giorgetti,
• Leanne Stokes and
• Christopher J. Morris

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2553–2562, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.246

• resin with 2 × 5 min 5% piperazine in DMF, each coupling step involved addition to 1 equiv of resin, Fmoc-protected amino acid, HCTU, HOBt and DIPEA (4:4:4:8 equiv) in 1.5 mL DMF. The mixture was incubated for 30 min at RT with occasional gentle agitation then washed with DMF (×3). This process was

• repeated to increase the peptide yield. Successful Fmoc removal and coupling of amino acids was confirmed with the Kaiser test. After successful coupling and Fmoc deprotection of the N-terminal amino acid, the resin was washed with DMF (3 × 5 mL, 1 min), then DCM (3 × 5 mL, 5 min) and the resin dried under

Small protein sequences can induce cellular uptake of complex nanohybrids

• Jan-Philip Merkl,
• Malak Safi,
• Christian Schmidtke,
• Fadi Aldeek,
• Johannes Ostermann,
• Tatiana Domitrovic,
• Sebastian Gärtner,
• John E. Johnson,
• Horst Weller and
• Hedi Mattoussi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2477–2482, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.238

• have also been discussed [12][14][15]. More recently, there have been a few reports discussing the use of luminescent Eu-loaded hydroxyapatite nanocrystals for rapid HeLa cancer cell imaging [9][11][16], or the nanostructure self‐assembly driven by amino acid coordination to increase the biological

Review of advanced sensor devices employing nanoarchitectonics concepts

• Katsuhiko Ariga,
• Tatsuyuki Makita,
• Masato Ito,
• Taizo Mori,
• Shun Watanabe and
• Jun Takeya

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2014–2030, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.198

• having chiral ʟ-serine and ʟ-threonine to discriminate enantiomers of N-acetyl amino acid anions through ratiometric fluorescence analysis. Torsi and co-workers adopted odorant binding proteins to discriminate chiral substances [90]. They immobilized odorant binding proteins to the gate of a water-gated

• related to protein metabolism, food products and pharmaceuticals. Such difficult goals can be achieved through a nanoarchitectonics approach, namely molecular imprinting [103][104][105]. Qiu and co-workers developed sensors for chirality detection of amino acid guests using an organic electrochemical

Novel hollow titanium dioxide nanospheres with antimicrobial activity against resistant bacteria

• Carol López de Dicastillo,
• Cristian Patiño,
• María José Galotto,
• Yesseny Vásquez-Martínez,
• Claudia Torrent,
• Daniela Alburquenque,
• Alejandro Pereira and
• Juan Escrig

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1716–1725, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.167

• cells through various processes, such as lipid peroxidation of cell membrane, damaging DNA and/or amino acid- and protein-based cell oxidation [50][51]. This analysis also evidenced that, although an important enhancement of CSTiO2 antimicrobial activity occurred within 60 min of UV irradiation, no

Scavenging of reactive oxygen species by phenolic compound-modified maghemite nanoparticles

• Małgorzata Świętek,
• Yi-Chin Lu,
• Rafał Konefał,
• Liliana P. Ferreira,
• M. Margarida Cruz,
• Yunn-Hwa Ma and
• Daniel Horák

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1073–1088, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.108

• augment particle internalization compared to heparin modification alone. Previous studies have suggested that electrostatic interactions, oxidation-dependent conjugation, and hydrogen bonds between the phenolic OH groups and polysaccharide moieties and/or amino acid residues of the cell membrane may

Enhanced inhibition of influenza virus infection by peptide–noble-metal nanoparticle conjugates

• Zaid K. Alghrair,
• David G. Fernig and
• Bahram Ebrahimi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1038–1047, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.104

• shell of 70:30 (mol/mol) peptidol and alkanethiol ethylene glycol assembled on gold nanoparticles has a well-characterised stability with respect to ligand exchange and non-specific binding [26][27], but the effect of incorporating the FluPep amino acid sequence at the C-terminus of the CVVVT matrix

• , including H1N1, H3N2 and H5N1 [15] can be successfully incorporated into the ligand shell of gold and silver nanoparticles. The FluPep-functionalised nanoparticles have a greater antiviral activity than the free peptide. The FluPep amino acid sequence is hydrophobic and its solubilisation requires dimethyl

Outstanding chain-extension effect and high UV resistance of polybutylene succinate containing amino-acid-modified layered double hydroxides

• Adam A. Marek,
• Vincent Verney,
• Christine Taviot-Gueho,
• Grazia Totaro,
• Laura Sisti,
• Annamaria Celli and
• Fabrice Leroux

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 684–695, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.68

• LDH hybrid materials, and in particular, their application as a polymer chain extender and UV stabilizer for PBS, which can likely be extended to other biodegradable polymers. Keywords: amino acid; layered double hydroxide; phenylalanine; polybutylene succinate; Introduction Polymer nanocomposite

• Sigma-Aldrich. PBS (PBE003) was purchased from NaturePlast. All the materials were reagent grade and used as received. Layered double hydroxide synthesis The LDH hybrids with general formula Mg2Al(OH)6[amino acid]·2H2O were prepared by a co-precipitation method according to a similar procedure as

• hydroxyl group OH− associated with metal cations Al3+ and Mg2+. Finally, the third weigh loss at >400 °C can be observed for the decomposition of amino acid or nitrate anions and the residual mass at 800 °C can be considered as the mass residue of Mg2AlO7/2. Evidently these residual mass losses are not

Mechanical and thermodynamic properties of Aβ₄₂, Aβ₄₀, and α-synuclein fibrils: a coarse-grained method to complement experimental studies

• Adolfo B. Poma,
• Horacio V. Guzman,
• Mai Suan Li and
• Panagiotis E. Theodorakis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 500–513, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.51

• of the individual amino-acid chains in these structures. Fibrils consisting of either 40-mer or 42-mer amyloid chains (it contains two additional hydrophobic amino acids) are particularly interesting. For example, Aβ40 typically assembles into two-fold or three-fold symmetries (see Figure 1), while

• fibrils with the PDB IDs 2LMO [39], 2M4J [40] and 2MVX [41] and two Aβ42 with the PDB IDs 5OQV [42], and 2NAO [43]. The only available structure for α-syn is the one with PDB ID: 2N0A [44]. The coarse-grained model In our CG model, each amino acid is represented by a bead located at the Cα-atom position

Biocompatible organic–inorganic hybrid materials based on nucleobases and titanium developed by molecular layer deposition

• Leva Momtazi,
• Henrik H. Sønsteby and
• Ola Nilsen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 399–411, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.39

• trends to our nucleobases in MLD growth rate of titanium-amino acid systems where the growth rate of glycine and L-aspartic acid systems also declined over a large temperature range [22]. Our observations of the decrease in growth rate can be due to increased thermal motion of adsorbed molecules and thus

Nanoscale characterization of the temporary adhesive of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus

• Ana S. Viana and
• Romana Santos

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2277–2286, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.212

• protein is pulled from the surface of the adhesive fibrils and the “hidden length” of the amino acid chain is extended [1]. When probed directly in milli-Q water, pull-off forces around 63 ± 40 pN were needed to break these sacrificial bonds [1]. As for barnacle cyprid larvae they use glycoproteinaceous

• within an intermolecular β-sheet as protein is pulled from the surface of the adhesive fibrils and the “hidden length” of the amino acid chain is extended [1]. In E. solae the sawtooth peaks observed in the retracting force–extension curve were equally spaced (15.5 ± 4.2 nm), indicating an underlying

Enzymatically promoted release of organic molecules linked to magnetic nanoparticles

• Chiara Lambruschini,
• Silvia Villa,
• Luca Banfi,
• Fabio Canepa,
• Fabio Morana,
• Annalisa Relini,
• Paola Riani,
• Renata Riva and
• Fulvio Silvetti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 986–999, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.92

• and from our own experience, we thought that at least a tripeptide would be necessary as the peptide specifier to grant selectivity by plasmin or other similar proteases. It is well known that plasmin is selective for lysine (or, to a lesser extent, arginine) as the scissile amino acid (P1), while a

• less polar amino acid, such as leucine, is preferred at P2. For the P3 position, any amino acid is in principle suitable. However, as suggested by Katzenellenbogen et al. [38], a D-amino acid would be preferred for the amino terminus to help prevent degradation of the peptide specifier by other

• (HOBt). The resulting dipeptide methyl ester was hydrolysed under basic conditions and coupled with Nε-Boc-L-lysine methyl ester hydrochloride using DCC and N-hydroxysuccinimide (HOSu), affording compound 4 with excellent yield from the starting amino acid. No racemization was detected in this latter

Liquid-crystalline nanoarchitectures for tissue engineering

• Baeckkyoung Sung and
• Min-Ho Kim

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 205–215, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.22

• tissue-derived biopolymers used in pharmaceutics, cosmetics and food industries, have a strong advantage as a cell scaffold material in that they harbor specific amino acid sequences (such as Arg–Gly–Asp) on which cell attachment occurs through the binding of transmembrane receptors (such as integrin

L-Lysine-grafted graphene oxide as an effective adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue and metal ions

• Yan Yan,
• Jie Li,
• Fangbei Kong,
• Kuankuan Jia,
• Shiyu He and
• Baorong Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2680–2688, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.268

• because more functional groups are available. 2) Strong π–π interactions and vacancy defects are good for enhancing the adsorption capacity of graphene materials. These results indicated that Lys-GO material has great potential application in treating wastewater. Conclusion A novel amino acid–graphene

Strategy to discover full-length amyloid-beta peptide ligands using high-efficiency microarray technology

• Clelia Galati,
• Natalia Spinella,
• Lucio Renna,
• Danilo Milardi,
• Francesco Attanasio,
• Michele Francesco Maria Sciacca and
• Corrado Bongiorno

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2446–2453, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.243

• mid-1990’s presented the KLVFF pentapeptide (Aβ16–20) as a strategy to arrest the formation of β-amyloid fibrils, confirming that amino-acid residues located within or close to this region are important for the adoption of the correct β-sheet structure of Aβ [30]. Semax is an hexapeptide (Met–Glu–His

• ribbon aggregates are clearly visible. Propensity of the epoxysilane HESs to immobilize peptides Silanization has been widely-used as a strategy to prepare optimal protein or DNA microarrays [25][26][40], the epoxide groups may bind peptide molecules through the reaction with the basic amino acid

Self-assembly of chiral fluorescent nanoparticles based on water-soluble L-tryptophan derivatives of p-tert-butylthiacalix[4]arene

• Pavel L. Padnya,
• Irina A. Khripunova,
• Olga A. Mostovaya,
• Timur A. Mukhametzyanov,
• Vladimir G. Evtugyn,
• Vyacheslav V. Vorobev,
• Yuri N. Osin and
• Ivan I. Stoikov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1825–1835, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.184

• with bromoacetyl bromide carried out in benzene at room temperature according to the literature procedure [39] (Scheme 1). The alkylating reagent 3 was chosen owing to the presence of aromatic fragments in the structure of the chiral amino acid. The ammonium derivatives of thiacalix[4]arene can form

• self-associates not only due to hydrogen bonds, but also due to π–π-stacking and the hydrophobic effects of the chiral amino acid with aromatic fragments [40]. The presence of amide fragments in the structure of the resulting macrocycles also contributes to the formation of aggregates via self

• aggregates formed by the p-tert-butylthiacalix[4]arenes 8–11 containing amide, quaternary ammonium and amino acid fragments in cone and 1,3-alternate conformation were also investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (Figure 2, Supporting Information File 1

Methionine-mediated synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles and functionalization with gold quantum dots for theranostic applications

• Arūnas Jagminas,
• Agnė Mikalauskaitė,
• Vitalijus Karabanovas and
• Jūrate Vaičiūnienė

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1734–1741, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.174

• magnetic NPs with gold quantum dots (QDs) containing more than 13.5% of Au+. Emphasis is put on the synthesis of magnetic NPs by co-precipitation using the amino acid methionine as NP growth-stabilizing agent capable to later reduce and attach gold species. The surface of these NPs can be further

• has been previously reported, such frequency downshift is due to the direct interaction of the carboxylate group of the amino acid with the NP surface [43]. We also suspect that the appearance of the significantly stronger symmetric vibration mode in the FTIR spectrum of gold decorated NPs at 1515 cm

Recombinant DNA technology and click chemistry: a powerful combination for generating a hybrid elastin-like-statherin hydrogel to control calcium phosphate mineralization

• Mohamed Hamed Misbah,
• Mercedes Santos,
• Luis Quintanilla,
• Christina Günter,
• Matilde Alonso,
• Andreas Taubert and
• José Carlos Rodríguez-Cabello

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 772–783, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.80

• polymers (ELPs) or recombinamers (ELRs), which are excellent example of materials that exhibit self-assembly and self-organization [27][28][29]. The majority of ELPs or ELRs consist of simple amino-acid consensus epitopes that are also present in natural elastin, such as (VPGXG)* (see Table 1 for details

• of sample nomenclature), where the guest amino acid X can be any of the natural or synthetic L-amino acids except L-proline. ELRs exhibit an intrinsic inverse temperature transition (Tt) in aqueous solution. Thus, below Tt, the ELR chains are highly hydrated, which gives rise to well-solvated

• polymers in a random coil conformation, whereas above Tt, the ELR chains self-assemble into β-turns, which are organized into a fibrillar morphology [27][30]. Changes to the guest residue X modulate Tt, with the key influence being the polarity of the amino acid side-chain in X. As such, ELRs can be

Comparison of four functionalization methods of gold nanoparticles for enhancing the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)

• Paula Ciaurriz,
• Fátima Fernández,
• Edurne Tellechea,
• Jose F. Moran and
• Aaron C. Asensio

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 244–253, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.27

• of free amine groups (few lysine amino acid residues) compared to the antibody molecule. The lower availability of free amino groups could hamper the attachment of peroxidase in the covalent strategy (Figure 1c), although more experiments should be performed to confirm this. Consequently, this would

Controlled supramolecular structure of guanosine monophosphate in the interlayer space of layered double hydroxide

• Gyeong-Hyeon Gwak,
• Istvan Kocsis,
• Yves-Marie Legrand,
• Mihail Barboiu and
• Jae-Min Oh

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1928–1935, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.184

• ancient environment, many scientists have begun to focus their research on the molecular arrangement of biological substances in the interlayer space of layered inorganics [3][4]. In those investigations, monomeric prebiotic molecules such as amino acid, nucleoside or nucleotide were intercalated and it

3D printing of mineral–polymer bone substitutes based on sodium alginate and calcium phosphate

• Aleksey A. Egorov,
• Alexander Yu. Fedotov,
• Anton V. Mironov,
• Vladimir S. Komlev,
• Vladimir K. Popov and
• Yury V. Zobkov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1794–1799, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.172

• , correspondently, amino acid concentration increases from 0.25 to 2.0 wt % (Figure 2). The FTIR spectra of DCPD exhibits principal characteristic bands known to be associated with РО4 (ν4) at 575 and 1125 cm−1, (ν1) at 981 cm−1, (ν3) at 870 cm−1 and 1056 cm−1; as well as H2O at 650 cm−1, 790 cm−1 [15]. In our FTIR

Effective intercalation of zein into Na-montmorillonite: role of the protein components and use of the developed biointerfaces

• Ana C. S. Alcântara,
• Margarita Darder,
• Pilar Aranda and
• Eduardo Ruiz-Hitzky

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1772–1782, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.170

• detergents [16][18][19]. The solubility is attributed to the non-polar amino acid residues of the protein, such as valine, leucine, proline, isoleucine, alanine, and phenylalanine, which confer a hydrophobic character to the protein [16]. Therefore, a good knowledge of structural and solubility properties of

• signals between 173–175 ppm due to carbonyls present in the peptide groups in both the main chain and the protein side chains. The signals at 128 ppm, those from 45 to 70 and those from 15 to 45 ppm are assigned to amino acid aromatic side chains, α-carbons linked to amino groups, and carbons from the

• amino acid aliphatic side chains, respectively [33]. Thus, these studies indicate that although zein cannot be dissolved in pure ethanol, a separation process of different components of the protein occurs in this medium corresponding to the soluble (EXT) and insoluble zein fractions (PCT), where EXT