The mild conditions used in sol-gel process allow the preparation of hybrid materials containing peptides. In most of reported cases, peptides are either non-covalently entrapped or grafted after the synthesis of the material1 , requiring surface treatment and chemoselective ligation. In contrast, we designed a new family of bioorganic-inorganic hybrid structured materials relying on the hybrid peptide-trialkoxsilyl building blocks, synthesised in Fmoc/tBu SPPS, that can be engaged directly in a sol gel process.
Figure 1. A Hybrid peptide ordered mesoporous silica catalyst, B Nanoparticles grafted with bioactives hybrid peptides, C,D,E Structures obtained by self assembly of hybrid peptides sequences derived from collagen.
This bottom up approach is flexible enough that any type of functionalities, biological and physicochemical properties afforded by the peptide unit can be introduced on the material either by grafting or by direct synthesis. Several examples of hybrid peptide materials will be presented (i.e. multifunctional nanoparticles, peptide-catalytic mesopous materials23 , anti fouling glass surfaces). At last, the self-assembling properties of the peptide unit can be exploited to yield a range of bio-inspired nanostructured materials
Biocompatible, bioinert and biodurable, silicons have been widely used since the 60’s as biomaterials for medicine for orthopedics, catheters, drains, shunts, extracorporeal equipment, implants and as injectable fluids for soft-tissue augmentation. On the other hand, peptide-based hybrid copolymers4 are a class of biomimetic materials that significantly become important due to their bioactive properties. To the best of our knowledge, only silicones incorporating random homopolypeptide sequences obtained by ring opening polymerisation of amino-acids NCAs or from hydrolysates of proteins are described so far. In this context, we first describe a new class of silicon-peptides biopolymers obtained by mild hydrolytic polymerization using well defined chlorosilyl hybrid peptides as mononeric units, synthesised in solution or on solid support 5 .
Figure 2. Types of peptide-silicon hybrids