Probing Orientations and Conformations of Peptides and Proteins at Buried Interfaces

J Phys Chem Lett. 2021 Oct 21;12(41):10144-10155. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c02956. Epub 2021 Oct 12.

Abstract

Molecular structures of peptides/proteins at interfaces determine their interfacial properties, which play important roles in many applications. It is difficult to probe interfacial peptide/protein structures because of the lack of appropriate tools. Sum frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy has been developed into a powerful technique to elucidate molecular structures of peptides/proteins at buried solid/liquid and liquid/liquid interfaces. SFG has been successfully applied to study molecular interactions between model cell membranes and antimicrobial peptides/membrane proteins, surface-immobilized peptides/enzymes, and physically adsorbed peptides/proteins on polymers and 2D materials. A variety of other analytical techniques and computational simulations provide supporting information to SFG studies, leading to more complete understanding of structure-function relationships of interfacial peptides/proteins. With the advance of SFG techniques and data analysis methods, along with newly developed supplemental tools and simulation methodology, SFG research on interfacial peptides/proteins will further impact research in fields like chemistry, biology, biophysics, engineering, and beyond.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Adsorption
  • Models, Molecular
  • Nonlinear Optical Microscopy
  • Peptides / chemistry*
  • Protein Conformation
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Surface Properties

Substances

  • Peptides
  • Proteins