Coating gold nanoparticles with peptide molecules via a peptide elongation approach

Coating gold nanoparticle surfaces with peptide molecules will expand the application potentialities of these nanomaterials in biomedical sciences. Our studies investigated some details of covering gold nanoclusters with peptide molecules via a peptide elongation approach. This route can minimize the loss of biological activities of peptide molecules by avoiding the use of sensitive side chains for anchoring peptides onto the Au surfaces, Our work demonstrates that the chiral integrity of each amino acid is maintained and the high coupling efficiency could be achieved in the peptide elongation route for coating gold nanoparticles. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.