Understanding how to control the interaction of biomolecules with noble metal (Ag/Au) and oxide (quartz) surfaces and/or nanoparticles, at the molecular level, will find widespread use in areas including biosensing and nano-medicine. Harnessing the capability of biomolecule-directed assembly of both metallic and non-metallic components may be crucial for realizing hierarchical spatial control in multi-materials assembly. Pivotal to success in this area is the exploitation of materials-selective binding of peptides (i.e. preference for a given sequence to stick to one material over another), under aqueous conditions.
As a first step to gaining the in-depth knowledge required for predictably controlling compositionally-selective peptide-materials binding and assembly, we use molecular simulations, in partnership with experiment. Molecular simulations give complementary information relative to experimental characterization, providing a detail of the peptide-materials interface at the atomistic level. Here, I report our findings for the peptide-quartz1,4 , peptide-gold1,2 and peptide-silver3 interfaces, that we are studying for the purposes of creating self-assembled Au/Ag and Au/SiO2 nanoparticle arrays with controllable spatial distribution. Our approach described can be generalized to a wide range of biomolecules and inorganic materials.