Gold peptide is a type of peptide that is covered by precious 24-carat gold crystals to help its absorption into the skin. It is an effective anti-aging peptide that helps reduce wrinkles and fine lines, and provides a bright youthful glow to the skin.
Various applications of biomolecule-NP conjugates have been developed in the past two decades due to their chemical inertness, minimal toxicity, and unique ability to target specific cells for drug delivery [2,3]. These nanoparticles can also be functionalized with proteins or antibodies and conjugated to a wide range of drugs to enable targeted therapy.
The self-assembly of peptides on the surface of gold nanoparticles has emerged as a promising strategy towards the creation of artificial enzymes, and this approach has led to numerous successful peptide-drug-conjugates (PDCs) with distinct properties compared to the unconjugated peptides. These peptide-drug-conjugates are capable of accelerating rates and enhancing the specificity of drug-delivery to target tissues, which could enhance the potential of PDCs in clinical application.
Characterization of NPs on Peptide Microfibers
The crystallinity of the generated gold nanoparticles was investigated by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). These techniques demonstrated that gold nanoparticles are face-centered cubic in nature with consistent d-spacing in both techniques. Moreover, the gold-peptide composites showed a promising fast reduction of small molecule pollutants p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol, with a reaction rate constant of 0.057 min-1 at a 50-fold dilute sample of 2 mg/mL and 0.72 mM gold concentration in the composites.