| Gold nanoparticles are considered to have great potential in drug delivery and photothermal therapy applications due to their chemical stability and biocompatibility. For these applications, highly ordered structures are desired. Here we show a novel method of organizing gold nanoparticles with rigid polymers such as collagen mimetic peptides into ordered assemblies. Collagen mimetic peptides have amino acid sequences that mimic collagen, but allow for greater experimental control due to their smaller size and reversible helix-to-coil transition. In this work, 2.0 +/- 0.3 nm gold nanoparticles with surface functionalized carboxylic acid groups (AuTP) and 5.4 +/- 0.6 nm gold nanoparticles with surface functionalized amine groups (AuCYS) were synthesized and coupled to collagen mimetic peptides via N-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-N'-ethylcarbodiimide (EDC) coupling agent. A complimentary peptide was used to form a collagen mimetic peptide in a triple helix conformation, therefore, directly linking AuTP and AuCYS. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed the distance between AuTP and AuCYS to be 7. 7 +/- 1.5 nm. |
