FUNCTIONAL PEPTIDE ASSEMBLIES ON SURFACES: TOWARDS ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY ANTIFOULING MATERIALS

Biofouling is an undesirable process in which a surface becomes encrusted with organisms and their by-products. This unwanted colonization has a serious impact on marine devices, as it lead to deterioration of the surfaces and can alter fluid flow rates leading to significant increase in cost of marine transportation. In the healthcare system, the attachment of bacteria and biofilm formation on medical devices may lead to a severe infection and consequently death. In the US alone, the American Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that healthcare-associated infections account for an estimated 1.7 million infections and 100,000 deaths annually.

Many approaches to prevent biofouling have been suggested, however, they suffer from drawbacks such as release of toxic materials to the surroundings, low stability that limits their long-term application or complex and expensive synthesis.

Here, we report on the spontaneous self-assembly of a tripeptide into a nanometre-scale coating that interfere with the attachment of organisms to the substrate and therefore act as an antifouling agent.

We chose to design a peptide which its sequence contains three elements that enable i) its self-assembly into a film, ii) its adsorption onto any substrate and iii) its antifouling activity. The advantages of using peptides for this purpose are concealed in peptides biocompatibility, chemical diversity, and ease for large scale synthesis.

Our results demonstrate the formation of a well organized film by the peptides on various surfaces (glass, titanium, silicon oxide, metals etc.). In addition, we clearly showed that the peptide-based coating completely prevented the first stage of biofouling and abolished the adsorption of proteins to a substrate. Moreover, the coating significantly reduced the amount of different bacterial strains adsorbed on the substrate.