Interactions between Metal Oxides and Biomolecules: from Fundamental Understanding to Applications.

Metallo-oxide (MO)-based bioinorganic nanocomposites promise unique structures, physicochemical properties, and novel biochemical functionalities, and within the past decade, investment in research on materials such as ZnO, TiO, SiO, and GeO has significantly increased. Besides traditional approaches, the synthesis, shaping, structural patterning, and postprocessing chemical functionalization of the materials surface is inspired by strategies which mimic processes in nature. Would such materials deliver new technologies? Answering this question requires the merging of historical knowledge and current research from different fields of science.

Correction: Preparation of hexagonal GeO2 particles with particle size and crystallinity controlled by peptides, silk and silk-peptide chimeras.

Correction for 'Preparation of hexagonal GeO2 particles with particle size and crystallinity controlled by peptides, silk and silk-peptide chimeras' by Estefania Boix et al., Dalton Trans., 2014, 43, 16902-16910.

Preparation of hexagonal GeO₂ particles with particle size and crystallinity controlled by peptides, silk and silk-peptide chimeras.

We demonstrate the use of silk based proteins to control the particle/crystallite size during GeO2 formation, using a bio-mimetic approach at circumneutral pH and ambient temperature. Multicrystalline GeO2 was prepared from germanium tetraethoxide (TEOG) in the presence of different silk-based proteins: Bombyx mori silk (native silk) and two chimeric proteins prepared by linking a germania binding peptide (Ge28: HATGTHGLSLSH) with Bombyx mori silk via chemical coupling at different peptide loadings (silk-Ge28 10% and silk-Ge28 50%). The mineralisation activity of the silk-based proteins was compared with that of peptide Ge28 as a control system.