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8

Molecular Design of Biological and Nano-Materials

Shuguang Zhang, Hidenori Yokoi, and Xiaojun Zhao

CONTENTS
8.1 Design, Synthesis, and Fabrication of Biological and Nano-Materials
at the Molecular Scale.......................................................................................................................... 229
8.1.1 Two Distinctive and Complementary Fabrication Technologies........................................... 230
8.2 Nanobiotechnology through Molecular Self-Assembly as a Fabrication Tool................................... 231
8.3 Basic Engineering Principles for Micro- and Nano-Fabrication Based
on Molecular Self-Assembly Phenomena............................................................................................ 231
8.4 Chemical Complementarity and Structural Compatibility through
Noncovalent Weak Interactions........................................................................................................... 233
8.5 Self-Assembling Systems — Models to Study Molecular Antenna for
Programmed Assembly, Surface Engineering, and Fabrication of
Nanoscaffold to Nanobiotechnology ................................................................................................... 234
8.5.1 Fabricating Nanowires using Bioscaffolds............................................................................. 234
8.5.2 Molecular Ink and Nanometer Coatings on Surfaces ............................................................ 234
8.5.3 Nanofiber Peptide and Protein Scaffolds................................................................................ 235
8.5.4 Designer Peptide Surfactants or Detergents........................................................................... 236
8.6 Peptide Detergents Stabilize Membrane Proteins and Complexes ..................................................... 239
Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................................... 240
References....................................................................................................................................................... 240

8.1 DESIGN, SYNTHESIS, AND FABRICATION OF BIOLOGICAL
AND NANO-MATERIALS AT THE MOLECULAR SCALE

Nature is the grandmaster when it comes to building extraordinary materials and molecular
machines — one atom and one molecule at a time. Masterworks include such materials as
minerals, well-ordered clays, and photonic crystals, and in the biological world, composites
of inorganic or organic shells, pearls, corals, bones, teeth, wood, silk, horn, collagen, muscle
fibers, and extracellular matrices. Multifunctional macromolecular assemblies in biology, such as
hemoglobin, polymerases, ATP synthase, membrane channels, the splicesome, the proteosome,
ribosomes, and photosystems are all essentially exquisitely designed molecular machines
(Table 8.1).
Through billions of years of prebiotic molecular selection and evolution, Nature has produced a
basic set of molecules that includes 20 amino acids, a few nucleotides, a dozen or so lipid molecules,
and a few dozens of sugars as well as naturally modified building blocks or metabolic intermediates.

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