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Thermoresponsive Self‐Assembly of Short Elastin‐Like Polypentapeptides and Their Poly(ethylene glycol) Derivatives
Author(s) -
Pechar Michal,
Brus Jiří,
Kostka Libor,
Koňák Čestmír,
Urbanová Martina,
Šlouf Miroslav
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
macromolecular bioscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.924
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1616-5195
pISSN - 1616-5187
DOI - 10.1002/mabi.200600196
Subject(s) - ethylene glycol , peg ratio , chemistry , dispersity , peptide , copolymer , polymer chemistry , supramolecular chemistry , combinatorial chemistry , organic chemistry , molecule , polymer , biochemistry , finance , economics
Short polypeptides with four pentad repeats, (VPGVG) 4 and (VPAVG) 4 , were synthesised by manual fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl/ tert ‐butyl (Fmoc/ t ‐Bu) solid phase peptide synthesis using a convergent approach. In the next step, the peptides were coupled via their N ‐terminus with activated semi‐telechelic poly(ethylene glycol) O ‐( N ‐Fmoc‐2‐aminoethyl)‐ O ′‐(2‐carboxyethyl)undeca(ethylene glycol) (Fmoc–PEG–COOH) to yield monodisperse Fmoc‐PEG‐peptide diblock copolymer. Both the presence of the terminal hydrophobic Fmoc group and the hydrophilic PEG chain in the copolymers were shown to play a crucial role in their self‐associative behaviour, leading to reversible formation of supramolecular thermoresponsive assemblies. The peptides and their PEG derivatives were characterised by HPLC, NMR and MALDI‐TOF MS. The associative behaviour of the peptides and their PEG derivatives was studied by dynamic light scattering, MAS NMR and phase contrast microscopy.