Recent progress in biomolecule-templated nanomaterials

Harnessing nature's amazing ability to form self-assembled structures for nanotechnology applications is an attractive alternative to conventional fabrication methods. In recent years, benefiting from the specific properties of biomolecules like highly order architecture and precise molecular recognition, there is increasing interest in biomolecules for templating the growth of a large variety of inorganic nanomaterials. The present review briefly assesses recent progress in biomolecule-scaffolded nanomaterials. Several biomolecules and three main templating principles emerging in recent years have been outlined, namely, (1) crystalline surface layers (S-layers) of bacterial cells with a regular distribution of physicochemical affinity sites at the protein surface for the fabrication of highly oriented semiconductor and metal nanocluster arrays; (2) nanometer-sized ferritin and ferritin-like protein cages as the size-constrained reaction environments for encapsulation of inorganic materials; (3) various biomolecules of linear morphology such as viruses, microtubules and lipid nanotubes for creation of one-dimensional array of nanoparticles, and tubular and wire-like nanostructures.