KCS

Bionanofabrication, constructing nanostructures from biological building blocks, is an emerging technology for generating functional nanomaterials. A variety of nanomaterials with diverse chemical or biological functionalities have been synthesized by utilizing highly specific biomolecular interactions. However, large-scale organization of those nanostructured biomaterials, which is critical for diverse applications, has rarely been explored yet. Here we introduce liquid crystalline bionanowires as novel materials for bionanofabrication. The peptide nanowires individually dispersed in an organic solvent could be readily assembled from an aromatic dipeptide. The stable dispersion of peptide nanowires exhibited colloidal liquid crystalline phase for a broad concentration range, allowing the rapid alignment of bionanowires under an external field. Hierarchical organization of liquid crystalline peptide nanowires consisting of highly specific biomolecular assembly and nanoscale liquid crystalline ordering provides an efficient pathway to a novel nanoarchitecture.