Effects of Helical Sense and Macrodipole on Helix Interaction in Poly(glutamic acid) Monolayers at the Air-Water...

The effect of the helical sense and the helical macrodipole moment of poly(glutamic acid) (PGA) amphiphiles on miscibility in their binary surface monolayers was examined by means of the surface pressure-area isotherm and spectroscopic measurements. Four types of PGA amphiphiles, having different chirality (l or d) and two long alkyl chains at the C- or N-terminus (1 or 2), were successfully prepared by polymerization of the corresponding NCAs. In acidic solutions, these amphiphiles were found to take right-handed or left-handed helical conformation, depending upon the chirality of the glutamic acid unit, and are dispersed in water molecularly without aggregation. On the other hand, the binary mixed monolayer of 1L and 1D provided a marked positive deviation from an ideal mixing curve, while that of the combination of 1L and 2L gave a much smaller negative deviation, suggesting that helical sense would play a more important role in monolayer miscibility. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.