Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2025, USA.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2011 Sep 19;50(39):9026-57. doi: 10.1002/anie.201006496. Epub 2011 Sep 5.
Under eons of evolutionary and environmental pressure, biological systems have developed strong and lightweight peptide-based polymeric materials by using the 20 naturally occurring amino acids as principal monomeric units. These materials outperform their man-made counterparts in the following ways: 1) multifunctionality/tunability, 2) adaptability/stimuli-responsiveness, 3) synthesis and processing under ambient and aqueous conditions, and 4) recyclability and biodegradability. The universal design strategy that affords these advanced properties involves "bottom-up" synthesis and modular, hierarchical organization both within and across multiple length-scales. The field of "biomimicry"-elucidating and co-opting nature's basic material design principles and molecular building blocks-is rapidly evolving. This Review describes what has been discovered about the structure and molecular mechanisms of natural polymeric materials, as well as the progress towards synthetic "mimics" of these remarkable systems.
在亿万年的进化和环境压力下，生物系统利用 20 种天然存在的氨基酸作为主要单体单元，开发出了坚固且轻质的基于肽的聚合材料。这些材料在以下几个方面优于其人造对应物：1）多功能性/可调节性，2）适应性/刺激响应性，3）在环境和水条件下的合成和加工，以及 4）可回收性和生物降解性。赋予这些先进特性的通用设计策略涉及“自下而上”的合成以及在多个长度尺度内和跨尺度的模块化、层次化组织。“仿生学”领域——阐明和利用自然基本材料设计原则和分子构建块——正在迅速发展。这篇综述描述了人们对天然聚合材料的结构和分子机制的了解，以及朝着合成这些出色系统的“模拟物”所取得的进展。
