Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are becoming increasingly important for manifold applications in, for example, imaging, catalysis, electronics, and the development of antimicrobial coatings. [1][2][3] The formation of AgNPs is typically accomplished by chemical reduction or irradiation of Ag + ions with visible light in the presence of additives, such as polymers or surfactants, which induce the formation of AgNPs and stabilize the NPs. [1,2] Recently, peptides bearing functional groups that coordinate to Ag + ions have become popular as additives. [4][5][6][7][8] Their large structural and functional diversity also renders peptides attractive for the controlled formation of AgNPs of defined sizes, which still presents a challenge to date. Since the rational design of peptides that induce metal NP formation is difficult, combinatorial approaches are attractive for the identification of suitable peptides. [7,8] We envisaged that colorimetric on-bead screening of split-andmix libraries could be a particularly powerful tool that would allow the testing of diverse libraries, which contain both natural and unnatural amino acids. [9] The typical size-and shape-dependent coloration of AgNPs [1] was anticipated to allow for a facile identification of active library members.Herein, we introduce the use of combinatorial split-andmix libraries for the identification of peptides that are capable of inducing the formation of AgNPs. In conjunction with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies, we also demonstrate that the method allows for the identification of certain types of peptides that induce the formation of AgNPs of specific sizes.We started our investigations by testing the members of peptide library 1 for their ability to induce AgNP formation in the presence of either light or the chemical reducing agent sodium ascorbate (Figure 1 a). Within the library, the amino acids serine (Ser), aspartic acid (Asp), histidine (His), and tyrosine (Tyr), bearing functional groups that were envisaged for Ag + ion coordination, were employed in positions AA1 and AA2 (Figure 1). Tyr was included in the library as it is a well-known photoactive residue. [6] Linkers of varying flexibility and geometry were used to connect the amino acids in order to allow for diverse spatial arrangements of their sidechain functional groups. trans-2-Aminohexanoic acid (Achc), Pro-Aib (Aib = aminoisobutyric acid) and Pro-Gly were chosen as turn-inducing linkers, and 6-aminohexanoic acid (Ahx) and b-alanine as flexible linkers. The library was prepared by encoded [10] split-and-mix synthesis [11] on TentaGel resin by utilizing seven different linkers and seven different l-and d-amino acids in positions AA1 and AA2, hence the library consisted maximally of 7 3 = 343 different peptides (Figure 1 a). Amino acid couplings were performed by following the standard Fmoc/tBu protocol for peptide synthesis using HBTU/iPr 2 NEt as the coupling reagent and piperidine for Fmoc deprotections (Fmoc = 9-fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl, HBTU = O-(benzotriazol-l-yl)-N,N,N'...

L-Valine-based oligopeptides with the chemical structure Z-(L-Val) 3 -OMe and Z-(L-Val) 2 -L-Cys (S-Bzl)-OMe form stable organogels in butanol. Both peptides are efficient gelators, but Z-(L-Val) 2 -L-Cys(S-Bzl)-OMe crystallizes more readily than Z-(L-Val) 3 -OMe. The two peptides can form mixed fibers, which also gel butanol. The resulting organogels are very similar to oligovaline organogels reported earlier (Mantion and Taubert, Macromol. Biosci., 2007, 7, 208) as they also form highly ordered peptide fibers with a predominant b-sheet structure and diameters of ca. 100 nm. The fibers can be mineralized with silver nanoparticles using DMF as a reducing agent. The fraction of the sulfurcontaining peptide Z-(L-Val) 2 -L-Cys(S-Bzl)-OMe controls the shape and size of the resulting nanoparticles. At high Z-(L-Val) 2 -L-Cys(S-Bzl)-OMe content, small spherical particles are distributed all over the fiber. Lower contents of Z-(L-Val) 2 -L-Cys(S-Bzl)-OMe lead to a size increase of the particles and to more complex shapes like plate-like and raspberry-like silver particles. The interactions between peptide and silver ions or silver particles takes place via a complexation of the silver ions to the sulfur atom of the thioether moiety, and are shown to be the key interaction in controlling particle formation.

Varying the polyethyleneglycol spacer between two (iso)-nicotinic groups of the ligand systems, a large structural variety of silver coordination compounds was obtained, starting with zero-dimensional ring systems, via one-dimensional chains, helices and double-helices to two-dimensional polycatenanes. Theoretical calculations help to understand their formation and allow predictions in some cases. These structures can be tuned by careful design of the ligand, the use of solvent and the counter ions, influencing also other important properties such as light stability and solubility. The latter is important in the context of biomedical applications, using silver compounds as antimicrobial agents.

The reliability in the description of the tautomerism of 1-phenylazo-4-naphthol by using of HF and MP2 ab initio levels of theory and DFT methods with variety of pure GGA (OLYP), hybrid (B3LYP and B3PW91), long range corrected (LC-BLYP) and double-hybrid (B2PLYP and mPW2PLYP) functionals with large number of basis sets was estimated. In this evaluation three criteria were used: reproduction of the bond lengths in the structures of the individual tautomers, description of the non-planarity of the enol tautomer and prediction of the position of the tautomeric equilibrium (ΔG value) at 298 K. The results show that in substantial number of cases HF reasonably covers all requirements. The tested pure (OLYP) and hybrid functionals (B3LYP and B3PW91) fail in the prediction of the position of the equilibrium independent on the basis set. The situation is slightly better at the long range corrected functional (LC-BLYP), which give predominance of the enol tautomer at 6-31þG** and D95þþ**. The double hybrid functionals give very good description with D95þþ** basis set, but at substantial computational costs.

Artificial implants and biomaterials lack the natural defense system of our body and, thus, have to be protected from bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation. In addition to the increasing number of implanted objects, the resistance of bacteria is also an important problem. Silver ions are well‐known for their antimicrobial properties, yet not a lot is known about their mode of action. Silver is expected to interact on many levels, thus the development of silver resistance is very difficult. Nevertheless, some bacteria are able to resist silver, even at higher concentrations. One such defense mechanism of bacteria against heavy‐metal intoxication includes an efflux system. SilE, a periplasmic silver‐binding protein that is involved in this defense mechanism, has been shown to possess numerous histidine functions, which strongly bind to silver atoms, as demonstrated by ourselves previously. Herein, we address the question of how histidine binds to silver ions as a function of pH value. This property is important because the local proton concentration in cells varies. Thus, we solved the crystal structures of histidine–silver complexes at different pH values and also investigated the influence of the amino‐acid configuration. These results were completed by DFT calculations on the binding strength and packing effects and led to the development of a model for the mode of action of SilE.