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Updated: Feb 15, 2026

Facile Protocol for the Synthesis of Self-assembling Polyamine-based Peptide Amphiphiles PPAs and Related Biomaterials
Published on: June 25, 2018
Control of Amphiphile Self-Assembly via Bioinspired Metal Ion Coordination
Abigail S Knight, Josefin Larsson, Jing M Ren
1The Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
Abstract:
Inspired by marine siderophores that exhibit a morphological shift upon metal coordination, hybrid peptide-polymer conjugates that assemble into different morphologies based on the nature of the metal ion coordination have been designed. Coupling of a peptide chelator, hexahistidine, with hydrophobic oligostyrene allows a modular strategy to be established for the efficient synthesis and purification of these tunable amphiphiles (oSt(His)6). Remarkably, in the presence of different divalent transition metal ions (Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, and Cd) a variety of morphologies were observed. Zinc(II), cobalt(II), and copper(II) led to aggregated micelles. Nickel(II) and cadmium(II) produced micelles, and multilamellar vesicles were obtained in the presence of manganese(II). This work highlights the significant potential for transition metal ion coordination as a tool for directing the assembly of synthetic nanomaterials.
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