Zinc‐Triggered Hydrogelation of a Self‐Assembling β‐Hairpin Peptide

Abstract

Zinc‐chronized gelling: Selective zinc‐triggered hydrogel formation is realized by the self‐assembly of a de novo designed peptide (see picture). A non‐natural, zinc‐binding aminocarboxylate residue is incorporated into the peptide and is used to trigger folding, assembly, and subsequent gelation.

Supramolecular Nanofibers and Hydrogels of Nucleopeptides

“…[6] Thus, we decide to explore the potential of nucleopeptides to serve as building blocks for biomaterials. Among many possible choices of the types of materials, we chose to generate hydrogels[7] of nucleopeptides for two simple reasons: (i) supramolecular hydrogels, resulted from molecular self-assembly in water that form entangled nanofibers, have exhibited considerable promises for applications in biomedicine because of the inherent biocompatibility and biodegradability associated with the supramolecular nanofibers;[8] (ii) despite their versatility and importance, small nucleopeptides have been hardly explored for hydrogels. Thus, the primary goal of this work is to design, synthesize, and evaluate molecular hydrogelators[7a, 7b, 9] made of nucleopeptides.…”

Redox modulated hydrogelation of a self-assembling short peptide amphiphile

“…Peptide self-assembly is driven by the orchestrated interaction of several intermolecular non-covalent forces including hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking, hydrophobic effect and electrostatic interactions. Environmental stimuli including pH [16][17][18][19], ionic strength and/or metal ions [18,[20][21][22], temperature [23], light [24] and enzyme-triggers [25], provide powerful approaches for modulating hydrogelation. Furthermore, introduction of microenvironment-sensitive amino acid residues into peptide sequences is also an important strategy for controlling peptide self-assembly and hydrogelation [9,[26][27][28].…”

Orthogonal Enzymatic Reactions to Control Supramolecular Hydrogelations

“…[13][14][15][16] Recently, the development of self-assembled oligopeptides as 3D scaffolds for tissue engineering has stimulated the efforts to expand the applications of supramolecular hydrogels including the development of novel biocompatible methods to form the hydrogels. [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Since the balance between hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity determines the ability of a small molecule to form a hydrogel, the careful adjustment of the balance would allow the control of self-assembly of small molecules and the formations of supramolecular hydrogels. [26][27][28][29] Although chemical or physical perturbations (e.g., adjusting pH, temperature, ionic strength, and ultrasonic agitation) are the usually used methods to achieve that balance, [2,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] enzyme-responsive self-assembly and gelation of the hydrogelators is advantageous for biomedical applications due to the highly efficient catalytic ability of enzymes in mild conditions and the biocompatibility associated with the enzymes.…”