Peptide Nanotubes: A Crystallographic
Approach
Ashima Bagaria and Suryanarayanarao Ramakumar
Abstract Molecular self-assembly has led to a breakthrough in the field of nanomaterials. This has also resulted in a myriad of potential applications in biology
and chemistry. Peptides have proven to be the most promising platforms owing to
their biocompatibility and diversity. They are also most studied amongst the other
classes of organic building blocks due to their uncanny resemblance to the proteins. There is a wide spectrum of literature available wherein the self-assembly of
peptides has been constructed using several amino acids and sequences. The wide
range of potential applications of such structures has been explored in drug delivery,
surfactants, tissue engineering, etc. This chapter focuses on peptide self-assembly
formed by non-coded amino acids, and formation of different nanostructures, using
a crystallographic approach.
1 Introduction
Molecular self-assembly is an attractive tool by which, designing and fabrication of
advanced nanomaterials can be done. In molecular self-assembly, well-defined higher
order structures result from the spontaneous association of the components mainly
via head-to-tail hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking, electrostatic and van der Waals
interactions. Supramolecular chemistry has opened new channels for the chemists
with new possibilities to synthesize a variety of molecular structures and materials
held together by relatively weak, non-covalent interactions.
It has been eons of molecular selection and evolution that nature has gone through
to create chemically harmonizing and structurally attuned constituents for molecular
self-assembly. Molecular self-assembly can be defined as the spontaneous organization of individual components into an ordered structure without human intervention.
The challenge lies in fabricating basic structural molecular building blocks that can
A. Bagaria (B)
Department of Physics, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur, India
e-mail: ashima.bagaria@jaipur.manipal.edu
S. Ramakumar
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
L. Ledwani and J. S. Sangwai (eds.), Nanotechnology for Energy and Environmental
Engineering, Green Energy and Technology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33774-2_4
93
Approach
Ashima Bagaria and Suryanarayanarao Ramakumar
Abstract Molecular self-assembly has led to a breakthrough in the field of nanomaterials. This has also resulted in a myriad of potential applications in biology
and chemistry. Peptides have proven to be the most promising platforms owing to
their biocompatibility and diversity. They are also most studied amongst the other
classes of organic building blocks due to their uncanny resemblance to the proteins. There is a wide spectrum of literature available wherein the self-assembly of
peptides has been constructed using several amino acids and sequences. The wide
range of potential applications of such structures has been explored in drug delivery,
surfactants, tissue engineering, etc. This chapter focuses on peptide self-assembly
formed by non-coded amino acids, and formation of different nanostructures, using
a crystallographic approach.
1 Introduction
Molecular self-assembly is an attractive tool by which, designing and fabrication of
advanced nanomaterials can be done. In molecular self-assembly, well-defined higher
order structures result from the spontaneous association of the components mainly
via head-to-tail hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking, electrostatic and van der Waals
interactions. Supramolecular chemistry has opened new channels for the chemists
with new possibilities to synthesize a variety of molecular structures and materials
held together by relatively weak, non-covalent interactions.
It has been eons of molecular selection and evolution that nature has gone through
to create chemically harmonizing and structurally attuned constituents for molecular
self-assembly. Molecular self-assembly can be defined as the spontaneous organization of individual components into an ordered structure without human intervention.
The challenge lies in fabricating basic structural molecular building blocks that can
A. Bagaria (B)
Department of Physics, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur, India
e-mail: ashima.bagaria@jaipur.manipal.edu
S. Ramakumar
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
L. Ledwani and J. S. Sangwai (eds.), Nanotechnology for Energy and Environmental
Engineering, Green Energy and Technology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33774-2_4
93