Characterization of Silver and Fluorescent Dyes Incorporated in Self‐Assembling Peptides and Their Potential Applications in Biology

Abstract

There is increasing interest in studying the interaction of nanoparticles with biomolecules, microorganisms, and noble metals to explore their unique properties and potential biological applications. The synthetic butyloxycarbonyl (Boc)‐protected methyl esters of peptides composed of only aliphatic amino acids (Boc‐Ile‐Ile‐OMe and Boc‐Leu‐Ile‐Ile‐OMe) self‐assembled into nanotubes and spheres, respectively, has been previously demonstrated. Herein, the characterization of these peptide nanoparticles incorporated with silver by means of various spectrometric methods and electron microscopy imaging techniques is described. The antibacterial activity of Ag‐doped nanoparticles was determined. These peptide nanoparticles were demonstrated to be useful encapsulants of charged fluorescent dyes. This investigation demonstrates the potential of these short peptide nanoparticles to design formulations of antimicrobial agents that will enhance their activity and as fluorescent probes for cell imaging.

Tubular to spherical mesoscopic self‐assembly of C‐ and N‐termini capped dileucines

“…Rigid crystalline structure of fully protected dileucine is rare . Therefore, to understand their self‐assembly in molecular level, we investigated the structure of P1 and P6 in both solid and solution states.…”

“…Although, H-Leu-Leu-OH crystallized in presence [37] /absences [13] of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) and also as trifluoroacetate cocrystal, [38,39] similar rigid self-assembly for C-/N-termini substituted analogues is scarce. [2,3] In one of our previous studies, [40] tertbutyloxycabonyl (Boc) protected dileucine having a propargyl group at C-terminus (Boc-Leu-Leu-Propyne, P1 in Figure 1) self-assembled to construct hollow micro-tubes ( Figure 2). Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) study of P1 indicated its crystalline nature.…”

“…Short peptide building blocks for self-assembly is essential for understanding the hierarchical associative processes through bottom up approach. [1] Aromatic and aliphatic L-amino acids, namely, phenylalanine (Phe), tyrosine (Tyr), tryptophan (Trp), phenylglycine (Phg), leucine (Leu), isoleucine (Ile), and valine (Val) produce plethora of peptides and proteins as self-assembled biomaterials [2][3][4][5] which showcase unique structural features. These architectures are frequently applied in nanophotonics, [6] optoelectronics, [7] biosensing, [8,9] and electrochemistry as supercapacitor.…”

Self‐assembly of t‐butyloxycarbonyl protected dipeptide methyl esters composed of leucine, isoleucine, and valine into highly organized structures from alcohol and aqueous alcohol mixtures

“…[21] Silver nanoparticles could be trapped in the nanostructures formed by the dipeptide. [22] In an effort to examine whether dipeptides composed of hydrophobic amino acids Val, Leu and their combinations can also form nanostructures, we have investigated the self-assembly of four dipeptides 1-4 composed of varying combinations of Val, Leu and Ile. The solvents for dissolution were MeOH as well as the structure-promoting solvent TFE [23] and HFIP.…”

The Effects of Luminescent CdSe Quantum Dot-Functionalized Antimicrobial Peptides Nanoparticles on Antibacterial Activity and Molecular Mechanism

“… 14 , 15 Target delivery of AP is necessary due to their short half-life and relative toxicity against healthy cells. 16 The effective use of nanoscale proteins and peptides in therapeutic and diagnostic methods is a strategy to induce and maintain their functional conformation.…”