Donor–acceptor graphene-based hybrid materials facilitating photo-induced electron-transfer reactions

• Anastasios Stergiou,
• Georgia Pagona and
• Nikos Tagmatarchis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1580–1589, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.170

• , although graphene-based biomaterials are out of the scope of this mini-review, GO has been covalently functionalized with peptides, antibodies and other biomolecules for applications in diagnostics, novel therapeutic approaches and near infrared (NIR) photo-thermal therapies [53]. A representative work

Current state of laser synthesis of metal and alloy nanoparticles as ligand-free reference materials for nano-toxicological assays

• Christoph Rehbock,
• Jurij Jakobi,
• Lisa Gamrad,
• Selina van der Meer,
• Daniela Tiedemann,
• Ulrike Taylor,
• Wilfried Kues,
• Detlef Rath and
• Stephan Barcikowski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1523–1541, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.165

• oligonucleotides [52][86], peptides [87] and proteins [68], species native to biological systems and hence omnipresent in toxicity assays. However, in situ conjugation always entails the risk that nanoconjugates are destroyed by post irradiation [88][89][90], leading to pyrolysis products with unpredictable side

• demonstrated by Sajti et al. [92] where peptides were used as quenchers and particle diameter could be controlled in a range from 20–45 nm (Figure 4B, red curve). A complementary strategy involves variation of the residence time by flow rate in a range from 0.5–8 mL/min (corresponding to time delays of 4–54 s

In vitro interaction of colloidal nanoparticles with mammalian cells: What have we learned thus far?

• Moritz Nazarenus,
• Qian Zhang,
• Mahmoud G. Soliman,
• Pablo del Pino,
• Beatriz Pelaz,
• Susana Carregal-Romero,
• Joanna Rejman,
• Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser,
• Martin J. D. Clift,
• Reinhard Zellner,
• G. Ulrich Nienhaus,
• James B. Delehanty,
• Igor L. Medintz and
• Wolfgang J. Parak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1477–1490, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.161

• release from the intracellular vesicles to the cytosol [56][57][58] (and not the diffusion through (transient) membrane pores). Endosomal release is, for example, a scenario which has been unraveled in detail for NPs coated with certain cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) [59][60][61][62]. Thus, while NPs

A sonochemical approach to the direct surface functionalization of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane

• Bashiru Kayode Sodipo and
• Azlan Abdul Aziz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1472–1476, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.160

• peptides, antibodies, oligonucleotides or polymers [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. As illustrated in Table 1, through a conventional method APTES can be grafted onto SPION by stirring, heating or combination of both heating and stirring. The combined heating and stirring process demonstrated to be the fastest

Model systems for studying cell adhesion and biomimetic actin networks

• Dorothea Brüggemann,
• Johannes P. Frohnmayer and
• Joachim P. Spatz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1193–1202, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.131

• , which were functionalised with RGD peptides. The adhesive gold nanoparticles had a diameter below 8 nm, which allowed the binding of one integrin molecule per RGD-functionalised nanoparticle [18]. If the distance between adjacent integrin-binding gold nanoparticles was less than 70 nm, cell adhesion was

Nanodiamond-DGEA peptide conjugates for enhanced delivery of doxorubicin to prostate cancer

• Amanee D Salaam,
• Patrick Hwang,
• Roberus McIntosh,
• Hadiyah N Green,
• Ho-Wook Jun and
• Derrick Dean

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 937–945, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.107

• NanoCarbon Research Institute (Osaka, Japan). DGEA peptide with a fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) tag attached via a lysine residue was purchased from Celtek Peptides (Nashville, TN). 1-Ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDAC) and N-hydroxysulfosuccinimide (sulfo-NHS) were purchased from Sigma

Controlling mechanical properties of bio-inspired hydrogels by modulating nano-scale, inter-polymeric junctions

• Seonki Hong,
• Hyukjin Lee and
• Haeshin Lee

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 887–894, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.101

• ) were acquired from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO). 1-Hydroxybenzotriazole (HOBt) hydrate was purchased from Peptides International (Louisville, KY) and benzotriazole-1-yl-oxy-tris-(dimethylamino)-phosphonium hexafluorophosphate (BOP) was acquired from Novabiochem (Germany). Synthesis of catechol

Morphological characterization of fullerene–androsterone conjugates

• Alberto Ruiz,
• Margarita Suárez,
• Nazario Martin,
• Fernando Albericio and
• Hortensia Rodríguez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 374–379, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.43

• suitably functionalized fullerene derivatives with physical and biological properties interesting for biomedicine and materials science [2]. The covalent linkage of C60 to moieties, such as porphyrins [3], anionic polymethine cyanine [4], and other bioactive molecules such as amino acids [5], peptides [6

Oriented attachment explains cobalt ferrite nanoparticle growth in bioinspired syntheses

• Annalena Wolff,
• Walid Hetaba,
• Marco Wißbrock,
• Stefan Löffler,
• Nadine Mill,
• Katrin Eckstädt,
• Axel Dreyer,
• Inga Ennen,
• Norbert Sewald,
• Peter Schattschneider and
• Andreas Hütten

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 210–218, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.23

• chemical bottom-up syntheses under similar conditions [21]. In these biomimetic syntheses, peptides are used which influence the inorganic crystal growth by different mechanisms, such as catalysis or surface adsorption. It was previously shown that c25-mms6, a short synthetic version of the protein MMS6

Controlled synthesis and tunable properties of ultrathin silica nanotubes through spontaneous polycondensation on polyamine fibrils

• Jian-Jun Yuan,
• Pei-Xin Zhu,
• Daisuke Noda and
• Ren-Hua Jin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 793–804, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.90

• conditions. However, the formation of silica nanotubes needs relatively long reaction times (i.e., several days), and the use of the peptides as templates is costly. In order to achieve a large-scale commercial application of silica nanotubes, a highly efficient low-cost strategy based on simple synthetic

Molecular dynamics simulations of mechanical failure in polymorphic arrangements of amyloid fibrils containing structural defects

• Hlengisizwe Ndlovu,
• Alison E. Ashcroft,
• Sheena E. Radford and
• Sarah A. Harris

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 429–440, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.50

• properties are modulated by incorporating chemical capping groups to neutralise the N- and C-termini of the peptides. In a previous simulation study to determine the sequence dependence of the resistance of amyloid fibrils to mechanical stress by using SMD [23], we highlighted the importance of structural

• . The nomenclature adopted throughout is Class1-P (parallel β-sheets), Class2-P (parallel β-sheets) and Class6-AP (antiparallel β-sheets). Mechanical responses of 8 × 2 fibril models We first model the fibril polymorphs as two interfaced β-sheets, each of which comprises eight peptides (8 × 2 models

• understood by examining the intersheet interfaces that are affected during the SMD simulation. Both “slide” and “peel” modes disrupt the electrostatic interactions between the charged termini and force the hydrophobic core to be exposed to solvent molecules. For the three polymorphs containing eight peptides

Nanoscopic surfactant behavior of the porin MspA in aqueous media

• Ayomi S. Perera,
• Hongwang Wang,
• Tej B. Shrestha,
• Deryl L. Troyer and
• Stefan H. Bossmann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 278–284, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.30

• strength and especially the temperature on the size of the MspA-vesicles and their zeta potentials, ζ. The influence of temperature on the 3D-aggregation behavior of peptides is rarely discussed, because the temperature is well defined in many living organisms and only a few proteins do not denature at

Controlled deposition and combing of DNA across lithographically defined patterns on silicon

• Zeinab Esmail Nazari and
• Leonid Gurevich

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 72–76, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.8

• stretching of various DNA–peptide conjugates. These nanomaterials have been recently prepared by our team and are composed of a dsDNA core and peripheral coating layer of self-assembled cationic peptides [21][22]. Results and Discussion As was mentioned above, DNA molecules acquire a relatively compact

• –peptide conjugates, while the original recipe was proven to be ineffective for combing these materials [11]. Figure 3 represents the topography of combed dsDNA conjugated with various peptides. Combing across nanoelectrodes was also possible for DNA–peptide conjugates (Figure 3e). The gas-phase deposition

• , Sigma Aldrich) was used as a buffer in all the procedures described here. The DNA solution was buffer exchanged to ammonium acetate before use, to guarantee that only “volatile” ions are present on the substrate. The following peptides were used to form DNA–peptide conjugates: indolicidin, abbreviated

Self-organizing bioinspired oligothiophene–oligopeptide hybrids

• Alexey K. Shaytan,
• Eva-Kathrin Schillinger,
• Elena Mena-Osteritz,
• Sylvia Schmid,
• Pavel G. Khalatur,
• Peter Bäuerle and
• Alexei R. Khokhlov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 525–544, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.57

• of amyloidogenic peptides to self-assemble and form extremely stable and tough nanostructures has been realized, and thus they are now actively probed as building blocks for various nanotechnology applications by covalently binding them to synthetic moieties [7][8][9][10], and engineering fusion

• peptides to other molecular compounds. Conjugates of synthetic and natural macromolecules are of great current interest because of their promising biomedical, microelectronic, and other advanced technological applications [7][8][9][10][14][15]. Covalent attachment of synthetic polymer blocks to

• of particular interest. The conjugation of oligothiophenes and amyloidogenic peptides may result in new compounds that supplement the potentially semiconducting, optical, and electroluminescent properties of oligo- and polythiophenes with the self-assembling, specific binding, and stimuli responsive

Detection of interaction between biomineralising proteins and calcium carbonate microcrystals

• Hanna Rademaker and
• Malte Launspach

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 222–227, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.26

• this mechanism, it would be advantageous to characterise the different proteins purified from bio-composites by their ability to bind to different minerals selectively. Such a characterisation assay or protocol is even useful for the design of peptides mimicking the biomineralisation process. It would

• be possible to evaluate the synthesis results of different peptides in terms of their mineral or ceramic binding capability. Turning to proteins purified from nacre from a marine shell or of a shell forming animal, it would be helpful to determine which proteins are involved in nacre or shell

Magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical NMR-based diagnostics

• Huilin Shao,
• Tae-Jong Yoon,
• Monty Liong,
• Ralph Weissleder and
• Hakho Lee

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 142–154, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.17

• spontaneous aggregation, which could mimic target-induced clustering; 3) have high magnetization and transverse relaxivity (r2) to induce pronounced T2 changes; and 4) have good surface chemistry to simplify conjugational procedures for attaching affinity molecules, such as antibodies and peptides. The MNPs