Bioinorganic Chemistry of Silver: Its Interactions with Amino Acids and Peptides

Abstract

Silver and its compounds have been used for centuries for e.g. water storage, burn wounds or as eye ointment. Almost forgotten after the discovery of antibiotics, silver chemistry has had a revival over the past years as a means to combat multi-resistant bacteria. Although the details of its mechanism of action are still unknown, silver seems to be efficient as it interacts with many biomolecular targets in a cell. In our group, we contribute to the elucidation of this mechanism of action by investigating the interactions of silver ions with amino acids and peptides as well as the formation of nanoparticles related to the mechanism of biomineralization of silver.