Material-specific binding peptides empower sustainable innovations in plant health, biocatalysis, medicine and microplastic quantification

Material-binding peptides (MBPs) are a diverse and valuable group of peptides to design functionalized materials for various applications, e.g., micro-/nanoplastic (MP/NPs) quantification. Progress in protein engineering methodologies and in computational and analytical methodologies allow designing material-specific MBPs with fine-tuned binding strength for numerous application demands in material science. A genetic or chemical conjugation of second (biological, chemical, or physical property-changing) functionality to MBPs empowers the design of advanced (hybrid) materials, bioactive coatings and analytical tools. We describe naturally occurring MBPs, their function in nature, short synthetic MBPs mainly obtained from phage-display libraries and medium-sized binding peptides (20-100 aa) that bind metals, polymers or other materials. An in-depth understanding of molecular interactions for material and material-specific binding empower its use in material science applications. Protein engineering methodologies and selected examples to tailor MBPs toward applications in agriculture, biomedicine, biotransformation and environmental monitoring show the transformative power of MBPs for industrial applications. We give an emphasis to MBPs role in detecting and quantifying MPs in high throughput, distinguishing them from other environmental particles and assisting to close an analytical gap to ensure food safety and enable monitoring of environmental plastic pollution.

MAO Maochao;  AHRENS Leon;  LUKA Julian;  CONTRERAS Francisca;  KURKINA Tetiana;  BIENSTEIN Marian;  SARRIA PEREIRA DE PASSOS Marisa;  SCHIRINZI Gabriella;  MĖHN Dóra;  VALSESIA Andrea;  DESMET Cloe;  SERRA BELTRAN Miguel;  GILLILAND Douglas;  SCHWANEBERG Ulrich; 

2024-08-07

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY

JRC136366

0306-0012 (online),   

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2024/cs/d2cs00991a,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC136366,   

10.1039/d2cs00991a (online),