An investigation into the nano-/micro-architecture of electrospun
                    poly (ε-caprolactone) and self-assembling peptide
                    fibers

ABSTRACTSelf-assembling peptides (SAPs) have the ability to spontaneously assemble into ordered nanostructures enabling the manufacture of ‘designer’ nanomaterials. The reversible molecular association of SAPs has been shown to offer great promise in therapeutics via for example, the design of biomimetic assemblies for hard tissue regeneration. This could be further exploited for novel nano/micro diagnostic tools. However, self-assembled peptide gels are often associated with inherent weak and transient mechanical properties. Their incorporation into polymeric matrices has been considered as a potential strategy to enhance their mechanical stability. This study focuses on the incorporation of an 11-residue peptide, P11-8 (peptide sequence: CH3CO-Gln-Gln-Arg-Phe-Orn-Trp-Orn-Phe-Glu-Gln-Gln-NH2) within a fibrous scaffold of poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL). In this study an electrospinning technique was used to fabricate a biomimetic porous scaffold out of a solution of P11-8 and PCL which resulted in a biphasic structure composed of submicron fibers (diameter of 100-700 nm) and nanofibers (diameter of 10-100 nm). The internal morphology of the fabric and its micro-structure can be easily controlled by changing the peptide concentration. The secondary conformation of P11-8 was investigated in the as-spun fibers by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and it is shown that peptide self-assembly into β-sheet tapes has taken place during fiber formation and the deposition of the fibrous web.

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A New Hope: Self-Assembling Peptides with Antimicrobial Activity

Pharmaceutics ◽

10.3390/pharmaceutics11040166 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 166 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Lucia Lombardi ◽

Annarita Falanga ◽

Valentina Del Genio ◽

Stefania Galdiero

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Biomedical Applications ◽

High Specificity ◽

Antibacterial Activities ◽

Mechanisms Of Action ◽

Great Promise ◽

Functional Nanomaterials ◽

Self Assembling ◽

Low Toxicity ◽

Bio Compatibility

Peptide drugs hold great promise for the treatment of infectious diseases thanks to their novel mechanisms of action, low toxicity, high specificity, and ease of synthesis and modification. Naturally developing self-assembly in nature has inspired remarkable interest in self-assembly of peptides to functional nanomaterials. As a matter of fact, their structural, mechanical, and functional advantages, plus their high bio-compatibility and bio-degradability make them excellent candidates for facilitating biomedical applications. This review focuses on the self-assembly of peptides for the fabrication of antibacterial nanomaterials holding great interest for substituting antibiotics, with emphasis on strategies to achieve nano-architectures of self-assembly. The antibacterial activities achieved by these nanomaterials are also described.

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High-tolerance crystalline hydrogels formed from self-assembling cyclic dipeptide

Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology ◽

10.3762/bjnano.10.184 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 ◽

pp. 1894-1901 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Yongcai You ◽

Ruirui Xing ◽

Qianli Zou ◽

Feng Shi ◽

Xuehai Yan

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Thermal Conditions ◽

Great Promise ◽

Cyclic Dipeptide ◽

High Tolerance ◽

Self Assembling ◽

Structural Rigidity ◽

High Propensity ◽

Wide Range ◽

New Type

Peptide-based supramolecular hydrogels, as a new type of biological nanoarchitectonic structure, hold great promise for a wide range of biomedical and nanotechnological applications, such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, and electronic and photonic energy storage. In this work, a cyclic dipeptide (CDP) cyclo-(Trp-Tyr) (C-WY), which has exceptional structural rigidity and high stability, is selected as a hydrogelator for the formation of supramolecular hydrogels. The unique hydrogen bonding in C-WY endows a high propensity for self-assembly and the resulting hydrogels are revealed to be crystalline. The crystalline hydrogels possess excellent mechanical capacity and superior tolerance to various harsh conditions, including in the presence of charged biopolymers, extreme acid/base environments, and changing thermal conditions. Such high tolerance enables the crystalline hydrogels to be applied in the complex and harsh environments of electrochemistry. In addition, this study demonstrates that the self-assembly of cyclic dipeptides results in highly robust hydrogels which can be applied for electrochemical applications such as electrochemical supercapacitors.

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Computationally designed peptides for self-assembly of nanostructured lattices

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.1600307 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2 (9) ◽

pp. e1600307 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Huixi Violet Zhang ◽

Frank Polzer ◽

Michael J. Haider ◽

Yu Tian ◽

Jose A. Villegas ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Noncovalent Interactions ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Covalent Modification ◽

Amino Acid Sequences ◽

Peptide Sequence ◽

Self Assembling ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Wide Range ◽

Micrometer Scale

Folded peptides present complex exterior surfaces specified by their amino acid sequences, and the control of these surfaces offers high-precision routes to self-assembling materials. The complexity of peptide structure and the subtlety of noncovalent interactions make the design of predetermined nanostructures difficult. Computational methods can facilitate this design and are used here to determine 29-residue peptides that form tetrahelical bundles that, in turn, serve as building blocks for lattice-forming materials. Four distinct assemblies were engineered. Peptide bundle exterior amino acids were designed in the context of three different interbundle lattices in addition to one design to produce bundles isolated in solution. Solution assembly produced three different types of lattice-forming materials that exhibited varying degrees of agreement with the chosen lattices used in the design of each sequence. Transmission electron microscopy revealed the nanostructure of the sheetlike nanomaterials. In contrast, the peptide sequence designed to form isolated, soluble, tetrameric bundles remained dispersed and did not form any higher-order assembled nanostructure. Small-angle neutron scattering confirmed the formation of soluble bundles with the designed size. In the lattice-forming nanostructures, the solution assembly process is robust with respect to variation of solution conditions (pH and temperature) and covalent modification of the computationally designed peptides. Solution conditions can be used to control micrometer-scale morphology of the assemblies. The findings illustrate that, with careful control of molecular structure and solution conditions, a single peptide motif can be versatile enough to yield a wide range of self-assembled lattice morphologies across many length scales (1 to 1000 nm).

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Cell-free TXTL synthesis of infectious bacteriophage T4 in a single test tube reaction

Synthetic Biology ◽

10.1093/synbio/ysy002 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Mark Rustad ◽

Allen Eastlund ◽

Paul Jardine ◽

Vincent Noireaux

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Bacteriophage T4 ◽

Test Tube ◽

Great Promise ◽

One Pot ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Self Assembling ◽

Phage T4 ◽

Biological Entities

Abstract The bottom-up construction of biological entities from genetic information provides a broad range of opportunities to better understand fundamental processes within living cells, as well as holding great promise for the development of novel biomedical applications. Cell-free transcription–translation (TXTL) systems have become suitable platforms to tackle such topics because they recapitulate the process of gene expression. TXTL systems have advanced to where the in vitro construction of viable, complex, self-assembling deoxyribonucleic acid-programmed biological entities is now possible. Previously, we demonstrated the cell-free synthesis of three bacteriophages from their genomes: MS2, ΦX174, T7. In this work, we present the complete synthesis of the phage T4 from its 169-kbp genome in one-pot TXTL reactions. This achievement, for one of the largest coliphages, demonstrates the integration of complex gene regulation, metabolism and self-assembly, and brings the bottom-up synthesis of biological systems to a new level.

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Heterotypic Supramolecular Hydrogels Formed by Noncovalent Interactions in Inflammasomes

Molecules ◽

10.3390/molecules26010077 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 26 (1) ◽

pp. 77

Author(s):

Adrianna N. Shy ◽

Huaimin Wang ◽

Zhaoqianqi Feng ◽

Bing Xu

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Electrostatic Interactions ◽

Structural Information ◽

Noncovalent Interactions ◽

Protein Structures ◽

Peptide Sequence ◽

Binding Motifs ◽

Self Assembling ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Peptide Materials

The advance of structural biology has revealed numerous noncovalent interactions between peptide sequences in protein structures, but such information is less explored for developing peptide materials. Here we report the formation of heterotypic peptide hydrogels by the two binding motifs revealed by the structures of an inflammasome. Specifically, conjugating a self-assembling motif to the positively or negatively charged peptide sequence from the ASCPYD filaments of inflammasome produces the solutions of the peptides. The addition of the peptides of the oppositely charged and complementary peptides to the corresponding peptide solution produces the heterotypic hydrogels. Rheology measurement shows that ratios of the complementary peptides affect the viscoelasticity of the resulted hydrogel. Circular dichroism indicates that the addition of the complementary peptides results in electrostatic interactions that modulate self-assembly. Transmission electron microscopy reveals that the ratio of the complementary peptides controls the morphology of the heterotypic peptide assemblies. This work illustrates a rational, biomimetic approach that uses the structural information from the protein data base (PDB) for developing heterotypic peptide materials via self-assembly.

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Factors Affecting Molecular Self-Assembly and Its Mechanism

Scientific Research Journal ◽

10.24191/srj.v9i1.5385 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 43 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hueyling Tan

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Molecular Engineering ◽

Molecular Structures ◽

Polymer Science ◽

New Approach ◽

Factors Affecting ◽

Dna Structures ◽

Self Assembling ◽

Wide Range

Molecular self-assembly is ubiquitous in nature and has emerged as a new approach to produce new materials in chemistry, engineering, nanotechnology, polymer science and materials. Molecular self-assembly has been attracting increasing interest from the scientific community in recent years due to its importance in understanding biology and a variety of diseases at the molecular level. In the last few years, considerable advances have been made in the use ofpeptides as building blocks to produce biological materials for wide range of applications, including fabricating novel supra-molecular structures and scaffolding for tissue repair. The study ofbiological self-assembly systems represents a significant advancement in molecular engineering and is a rapidly growing scientific and engineering field that crosses the boundaries ofexisting disciplines. Many self-assembling systems are rangefrom bi- andtri-block copolymers to DNA structures as well as simple and complex proteins andpeptides. The ultimate goal is to harness molecular self-assembly such that design andcontrol ofbottom-up processes is achieved thereby enabling exploitation of structures developed at the meso- and macro-scopic scale for the purposes oflife and non-life science applications. Such aspirations can be achievedthrough understanding thefundamental principles behind the selforganisation and self-synthesis processes exhibited by biological systems.

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Clathrin-Inspired Coating and Stabilization of Liposomes by DNA Self-Assembly

10.26434/chemrxiv.8859017.v1 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Kevin N. Baumann ◽

Luca Piantanida ◽

Javier García-Nafría ◽

Diana Sobota ◽

Kislon Voïtchovsky ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Mechanical Stability ◽

Lipid Vesicles ◽

The Self ◽

Force Microscopy ◽

Atomic Force ◽

Cryo Electron Microscopy ◽

Further Development ◽

Liposome Surface ◽

Dna Coating

The self-assembly of the protein clathrin on biological membranes facilitates essential processes of endocytosis in biological systems and has provided a source of inspiration for materials design by the highly ordered structural appearance. By mimicking the architecture of clathrin self-assemblies to coat liposomes with biomaterials, new classes of hybrid carriers can be derived. Here we present a method for fabricating DNA-coated liposomes by hydrophobically anchoring and subsequently growing a DNA network on the liposome surface which structurally mimics clathrin assemblies. Dynamic light scattering (DLS), ζ-potential and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) measurements independently demonstrate successful DNA coating. Nanomechanical measurements conducted with atomic force microscopy (AFM) show that the DNA coating enhances the mechanical stability of the liposomes relative to uncoated ones. Furthermore, we provide the possibility to reverse the coating process by triggering the disassembly of the DNA coating through a toehold-mediated displacement reaction. Our results describe a straightforward, versatile, and reversible approach for coating and stabilizing lipid vesicles by an interlaced DNA network. This method has potential for further development towards the ordered arrangement of tailored functionalities on the surfaces of liposomes and for applications as hybrid nanocarrier.

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Directive Effect of Chain Length in Modulating Peptide Nano-assemblies

Protein and Peptide Letters ◽

10.2174/0929866527666200224114627 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 27 (9) ◽

pp. 923-929

Author(s):

Gaurav Pandey ◽

Prem Prakash Das ◽

Vibin Ramakrishnan

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Amino Acids ◽

Light Scattering ◽

Chain Length ◽

Self Assembly ◽

The Self ◽

Ionic Charge ◽

Self Assembling ◽

Biophysical Techniques

Background: RADA-4 (Ac-RADARADARADARADA-NH2) is the most extensively studied and marketed self-assembling peptide, forming hydrogel, used to create defined threedimensional microenvironments for cell culture applications. Objectives: In this work, we use various biophysical techniques to investigate the length dependency of RADA aggregation and assembly. Methods: We synthesized a series of RADA-N peptides, N ranging from 1 to 4, resulting in four peptides having 4, 8, 12, and 16 amino acids in their sequence. Through a combination of various biophysical methods including thioflavin T fluorescence assay, static right angle light scattering assay, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), electron microscopy, CD, and IR spectroscopy, we have examined the role of chain-length on the self-assembly of RADA peptide. Results: Our observations show that the aggregation of ionic, charge-complementary RADA motifcontaining peptides is length-dependent, with N less than 3 are not forming spontaneous selfassemblies. Conclusion: The six biophysical experiments discussed in this paper validate the significance of chain-length on the epitaxial growth of RADA peptide self-assembly.

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Self-assembling behaviour of a modified aromatic amino acid in competitive medium

Soft Matter ◽

10.1039/d0sm00584c ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 16 (28) ◽

pp. 6599-6607 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Pijush Singh ◽

Souvik Misra ◽

Nayim Sepay ◽

Sanjoy Mondal ◽

Debes Ray ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Amino Acid ◽

Self Assembly ◽

Aromatic Amino Acid ◽

Photophysical Properties ◽

Solvent Mixture ◽

The Self ◽

Solvent Ratio ◽

Self Assembling

The self-assembly and photophysical properties of 4-nitrophenylalanine (4NP) are changed with the alteration of solvent and final self-assembly state of 4NP in competitive solvent mixture and are dictated by the solvent ratio.

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