Self-assembly of proteins is driven by non-covalent association of short peptide sequences or small molecular surfaces through complementary molecular interactions. Inspired by the bio-specificity of protein/peptide driven assembly, the research presented investigates the use of peptides to construct molecular building blocks (MBBs) that provide step-by-step, MBB-by-MBB, control over the bottom up self-assembly of nanostructures. The strategy looks at exploiting coiled coil forming peptide sequences to construct MBBs with two connected faces that are bio-specific and only associate with their designed partners allowing association and assembly when complementary building blocks are added. The results presented here highlight the synthesis and characterization of multiple MBBs containing unnatural amino acid subunits and their self-assembly. Additional information is also given regarding the construction of a structurally modified group of MBBs to be joined together through disulfide bridges.

Synthesis and structural variations of peptide-based molecular building blocks and their self-assembly

255th National Meeting (2018)

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