SUPRA-BIOMOLECULAR ARCHITECTURES AT FUNCTIONALIZED SURFACES

The controlled build-up of supra-molecular architectures by specific recognition reactions at functionalized surfaces is currently studied in many laboratories employing a broad range of experimental techniques. In particular, the ligand-receptor pair biotin-streptavidin1 is widely used as a model system because i) it undergoes a highly specific and strong binding reaction (with a binding constant of K = 10−15M), ii) the complex formed is structurally well-characterized by X-ray analysis so that information about the sterical requirements of the binding reaction can be deduced,2,3 iii) biotin (vitamin H) can be easily linked to other functional units, e.g. to phospholipids or self-assembling molecules like alkyl-thiols4, and iv) the two biomolecules are easily available and relatively stable to work with.