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Updated: Feb 12, 2026
Synthesis of Information-bearing Peptoids and their Sequence-directed Dynamic Covalent Self-assembly
Published on: February 6, 2020
Direct Synthesis of a Covalently Self-Assembled Peptide Nanogel from a Tyrosine-Rich Peptide Monomer and Its
Kyoung-Ik Min1, Dong-Hwi Kim2, Hyune-Jea Lee2
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
Abstract:
There has been significant progress in the self-assembly of biological materials, but the one-step covalent peptide self-assembly for well-defined nanostructures is still in its infancy. Inspired by the biological functions of tyrosine, a covalently assembled fluorescent peptide nanogel is developed by a ruthenium-mediated, one-step photo-crosslinking of tyrosine-rich short peptides under the visible light within 6 minutes. The covalently assembled peptide nanogel is stable in various organic solvents and different pH levels, unlike those made from vulnerable non-covalent assemblies. The semipermeable peptide nanogel with a high density of redox-active tyrosine acts as a novel nano-bioreactor, allowing the formation of uniform metal-peptide hybrids by selective biomineralization under UV irradiation. As such, this peptide nanogel could be useful in the design of novel nanohybrids and peptidosomes possessing functional nanomaterials.
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