Biological hybrid nanostructured material

Joshi et al., in Chapter 2, Self-assembled nanostructure preparation and applications, discuss about the fabrication of nanostructures from biological building blocks. The self-assembly of such nanostructures is a spontaneous process by which molecules/nanophase entities will materialize into organized aggregates. Many biomolecules, such as proteins and peptides, can interact and self-assemble into highly ordered supramolecular architectures including nanotubes, nanofibrils, nanowires, spherical vesicles, and hybrids, the subsequent improvement of their properties and their possible applications. 

In this chapter, attention is focused on novel developments for the production of pristine nucleic acid architectures and DNA-polymer hybrid structures, employing the methods, techniques, and materials acquired from molecular biology. However, while the details of linear DNA block copolymers (DBCs), DNA networks, and catenated DNA structures will be included, the preparation and modification of regular DNA nanostructures, using molecular biology methods and enzymes, will not be discussed as an excellent summary of these procedures is available elsewhere [15]. 

The attachment of MN4-MC on the surface of graphene-based materials for electroanalytical purposes has been carried out by means of noncovalent interactions, mainly n-n stacking, as well as by chemical linkages between the sheets and the macrocyclic complexes. The utilization of biological species, polymers, and nanostructures such as magnetic nanoparticles, quantum dots, metallic nanopaiti-cles, and CNTs has also been incorporated in the fabrication of MN4-MC functional hybrid materials applied in electroanalysis. Selected examples that illustrate such variety of possibilities, configurations, and detection strategies will be discussed next. 

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