<br/>Polypeptides have been attached covalently to silica templates with various shapes, either by growing them from a functionalized surface or by attaching them using "click" coupling chemistry. These hybrid polymer-colloid particles join the features of polypeptides--chirality, definable and switchable secondary structures, chemical versatility within the same basic synthetic scheme--to the ease of manipulation inherent to colloidal particles. Particular effort has been devoted to characterizing the helix-coil transition for the polypeptides bound to the curved particle surfaces. The transition, which alters the overall size of the particles and how they interact with eachother and with other surfaces, can be detected by dynamic light scattering and NMR spectroscopy. The sharpness of the transition varies with surface curvature and polypeptide chain length. A special feature of polypeptides, not matched by most polymers used to cover colloidal particles, is the ability to sustain a liquid crystalline phase as mesogens. When the polypeptide composite particles are mixed with untethered polypeptide mesogens, entropic considerations cause the particles to align into superstructures. Such liquid crystal-assisted assembly is only one intriguing opportunity afforded by polypeptide composite particles mixed with polypeptides of the same type as liquid crystals. The particles also make excellent model systems for studies of diffusion in complex fluids and the jamming transition. Supported by NSF DMR Polymers Program.

Polypeptide composite particles

255th National Meeting (2018)

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