from Dong Li and Chuanbin Mao writing in Bionanotechnology: Biological Self-assembly and its Applications:
A variety of naturally occurring biological materials exhibits supramolecular self-assembly properties. By incorporation of signaling motifs, biological information and functional units, these biological materials can find extensive applications in developing nanotechnology, material science, tissue engineering and nanomedicine. In this review, some naturally occurring materials, which can be genetically engineered to display or chemically modified to incorporate foreign peptides, are summarized. The self-assembly behaviors of these biological materials generates hierarchically organized structures from the bottom up. The presentation of functional peptides on these biological materials enables the production of biomaterials for different applications. More and more naturally occurring biological materials are to be studied with the development of biotechnology and nanotechnology.
Further reading: Bionanotechnology: Biological Self-assembly and its Applications