Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
603132 | Current Opinion in Colloid & Interface Science | 2009 | 9 Pages |
Abstract
A surfactant is briefly defined as a material that can greatly reduce the surface tension of water when used in very low concentrations. Surfactants are usually organic compounds that are amphiphilic, containing both hydrophobic groups and hydrophilic groups. Therefore, they are soluble in both organic solvents and water. Many surfactants can also assemble in the bulk solution into aggregates such as vesicles and micelles. Self-assembling peptides are a novel category of designer peptides that can undergo spontaneous organization into well-ordered nanostructures with the great potentials in nanotechnology, nanomedicine including 3-dimensional (3-D) cell culture, drug delivery, wound repair, and so on. In this review, we introduce a family of designer surfactant-like peptides: the self-assembling peptides which have been derived by mimicking the structure of traditional surfactants.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Colloid and Surface Chemistry
Authors
Xiaojun Zhao,