Mussel adhesive-inspired polymers

The third and last section of our book deals with polymeric materials with bio-inspired functionality. The opening chapter by Waite gives a biological perspective of how mussels adhere to interfaces and emphasizes the importance of first understanding the biology before new, tmly bio-inspired materials can be achieved. The second chapter in this section, written by Lee, describes the synthetic achievements of mussel glue-inspired polymers, and depicts the polymer chemist s approach to mimic the mussel adhesion described by Waite in the previous chapter. Bruns and co-authors present a chapter on self-reporting polymeric materials with mechanochromic properties. Such materials mimic nature s ability to report, repair, and improve... 

A more recent example of a biotransformation of peptide-polymer conjugates combines biocombinatorial procedures with enzjonatic activation processes in order to realize mussel-glue inspired adhesion. Phage-display biopanning incorporating tyrosinase to transform L-tyrosine residues to L-dopa enabled the direct selection of enzymatically activable 12-mer peptide adhesion domains for aluminum oxide (Figure 1.21). 

Lee BP, Dalsin JL, Messersmith PB (2006) Biomimetic adhesive polymers based on mussel adhesive proteins. In Smith AM, Callow JA (eds) Biological adhesives. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, pp 257-278 Lee H, Lee BP, Messersmith PB (2007) A reversible wet/ dry adhesive inspired by mussels and geckos. Nature 448 338-341... 

An alternative approach to immobilize organic compounds such as MPC to metal substrates is the use of mussel-inspired chemistry. Mussels can rapidly and permanently adhere to all types of inorganic and organic surfaces in aqueous environments. Such adhesive properties rely on repeats of the 3,4-dihydro)q7-L-phenylalanine (DOPA) motif found in the foot protein of mussels. Although the exact mechanism of adhesion is not fully understood, it has been widely speculated that the 3,4-dihydro)qq3henyl (DHP) group of DOPA is responsible for the adhesion. When a polymer with DHP groups was placed in contact with a metal substrate, a thin polymer film was observed to spontaneously deposit on the surface. Functionalization of such a polymer was then able to impart new characteristics to the metal substrate. 

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