Interaction of Collagen with Carbon Nanotube: A Molecular Dynamics Investigation

In variety of biological applications carbon nano materials interact with different biological macromolecules, such as proteins, carbohydrates and nucleic acids. In this study carbon nanotube (CNT) has been used as the model for carbon nanomaterials. Since, collagen is a large protein; model collagen like peptide (CPs) has been used to understand the interaction between CNT and collagen. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation showed that the hydrophobic–hydrophobic interaction of the CNT-CPs play a crucial role in attracting the CPs towards the CNT. No structural aberrations occured in collagen upon interaction with CNT and hence CNT can be employed in the tissue engineering applications.