Premium
Mixing Biomimetic Heterodimers of Nucleopeptides to Generate Biocompatible and Biostable Supramolecular Hydrogels
Author(s) -
Yuan Dan,
Du Xuewen,
Shi Junfeng,
Zhou Ning,
Zhou Jie,
Xu Bing
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.201412448
Subject(s) - self healing hydrogels , supramolecular chemistry , nanofiber , chemistry , peptide , self assembly , hydrogen bond , biocompatible material , alkyl , nanotechnology , combinatorial chemistry , materials science , molecule , polymer chemistry , organic chemistry , biochemistry , medicine , biomedical engineering
As a new class of biomaterials, most supramolecular hydrogels formed by small peptides require the attachment of long alkyl chains, multiple aromatic groups, or strong electrostatic interactions. Based on the fact that the most abundant protein assemblies in nature are dimeric, we select short peptide sequences from the interface of a heterodimer of proteins with known crystal structure to conjugate with nucleobases to form nucleopeptides. Being driven mainly by hydrogen bonds, the nucleopeptides self‐assemble to form nanofibers, which results in supramolecular hydrogels upon simple mixing of two distinct nucleopeptides in water. Moreover, besides being biocompatible to mammalian cells, the heterodimer of the nucleopeptides exhibit excellent proteolytic resistance against proteinase K. This work illustrates a new and rational approach to create soft biomaterials by a supramolecular hydrogelation triggered by mixing heterodimeric nucleopeptides.