Recognition of epoxy with phage displayed peptides.

The development of a general approach for non-destructive chemical and biological functionalization of epoxy could expand opportunities for both fundamental studies and creating various device platforms. Epoxy shows unique electrical, mechanical, chemical and biological compatibility and has been widely used for fabricating a variety of devices. Phage display has emerged as a powerful method for selecting peptides that possess enhanced selectivity and binding affinity toward a variety of targets. In this letter, we demonstrate for the first time a powerful yet benign approach for identifying binding motifs to epoxy via comprehensively screened phage displayed peptides. Our results show that the epoxy can be selectively recognized with peptide-displaying phages. Further, along with the development of epoxy-based microstructures; recognition of the epoxy with phage displayed peptides can be specifically localized in these microstructures. We anticipate that these results could open up exciting opportunities in the use of peptide-recognized epoxy in fundamental biochemical recognition studies, as well as in applications ranging from analytical devices, hybrid materials, surface and interface, to cell biology.