Micropatterning: Quartz Binding Peptides as Molecular Linkers towards Fabricating Multifunctional Micropatterned Substrates (Adv. Mater. 3/2009)

The cover shows a fluorescent microscopy image of co-assembly of streptavidin functionalized quantum dots (SA-QD) and fluorescein molecules self-assembled using biotinylated and conjugated quartz binding peptides (QBP-bio and QBP-fluorescein). Mehmet Sarikaya and co-workers describe how inorganic binding peptides can act as universal linkers on p. 295. Stamping of the QBP-bio using micro-contact printing is followed by directed assembly of SA-QD (red). The QBP-fluorescein is then immobilized on the bare silica (green) to generate uniform bifunctional micropatterns.