Growth and survival are supported by a highly efficient system consisting of cascade reactions which wire the metabolic networks. These multistep cascades commonly do not require the separation of intermediates. Taking inspiration from Nature, it is appealing to design synthetic platforms that mimic the versatility of the natural homologues. A challenging problem to achieve this goal is designing suitable catalytic supports able to carry high loads of catalyst molecules. In this regard polypeptides consisting of amino acids building blocks are interesting materials for use as catalytic supports because they render a multitude of functionalities and secondary conformations. For example, grafted to solid spherical supports, helical poly(steayl-L-glutamate) (PSLG), was able to immobilize Candida rugosa (CRL), an enzyme often used in biotechnological processes. The CRL immobilization efficiency was over 120 times higher than that evaluated for control solid substrates grafted only with stearyl chains. The data indicated that not only the hydrophobic character of the PSLG enables CRL immobilization; rather the molecular structure of the polypeptide played a key role.<br/>Besides PSLG other polypeptides were assessed for their potential as nature-inspired catalytic supports: poly(γ-benzyl-L-glutamate), (PBLG) and poly(N-carbobenzyloxy-L-lysine), (PCBL). Grafted from the surface of more or less porous solid supports, the PCBL-PBLG-based materials were investigated for their ability to catalyze a series of reactions including epoxidation of cycloalkenes and nucleophilic substitution to alcohols.

Polypeptide-based composites: Nature-inspired materials for Integration into chemo-catalytic cascade processes

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.