Conformational Flexibility and pH Effects on Anisotropic Growth of Sheet-Like Assembly of Amphiphilic Peptides

Peptide-based biomaterials have many potential applications in tissue engineering, drug delivery, surface engineering, and other areas. In this study, we exploited a series of amphiphilic diblock model peptides (L5K10, L5GSIIK10, and L5P(D)PK10) to understand how the supramolecular assembly morphology may be modulated by the physical properties of the peptide monomer and experimental conditions. A combination of experimentation and simulation revealed that although all three peptides lack stable structures as monomers, their levels of conformational heterogeneity differ significantly. Importantly, such differences appear to be correlated with the peptides' ability to form sheet-like assemblies. In particular, substantial conformational heterogeneity appears to be required for anisotropic growth of sheet-like materials, likely by reducing the peptide assembly kinetics. To test this hypothesis, we increased the pH to neutralize the lysine residues and promote peptide aggregation, and the resulting faster assembly rate hindered the growth of the sheet morphology as predicted. In addition, we designed and investigated the assembly morphologies of a series of diblock peptides with various lengths of polyglycine inserts, L5GxK10, x = 1, 2, 3, 4. The results further supported the importance of peptide conformational flexibility and pH in modulation of the peptide supramolecular assembly morphology.