Abstract
Biomaterials are still commonly fabricated using synthetic scaffolds and catalysts such as polymers and surfactants. As contemporary requirements for cleaner and safer biomaterial manufacture rise, there will be a need to generate materials that are more akin to biogenic materials in the hard tissue of organisms. This can be achieved by employing biomolecules derived from organisms themselves. Specialized proteins and peptides, which act as tiny bioengineers in biological processes of mineral formation, can be utilized as biomimetic scaffolds and as reaction catalysts. The use of such molecules rather than synthetic polymers is a promising avenue for generating biodegradable green materials and ensuring the biosafety of medical materials such as dental and bone implants. We review here recent work from the group, on using peptides derived from mineralizing proteins to control the morphology of biomimetic apatite and silica and on characterizing their molecular level interfacial interactions with the inorganic materials formed using contemporary solid-state NMR experiments.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 44-52 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Current Opinion in Colloid and Interface Science |
Volume | 33 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018
Funding
We thank Liora Maykler for help with assignment and conformational analysis of the PL12 peptide in solution, Prof. Jeffrey Gray for collaboration on the modeling of protein-mineral interactions and Prof. Robert Konrat for collaborative work on osteopontin and kind extension of protein samples. We also thank Dr. Hugo Gottlieb and Dr. Michal Afri for their extensive help with solution NMR measurements and Dr. Judith Grinblat for extensive electron microscopy analysis. Financial support for the work was provided by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the Binational Science Foundation (BSF), and the EAST-NMR and BIO-NMR projects. Appendix A
Funders | Funder number |
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United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation | |
Israel Science Foundation |