A covalent crosslinking strategy to construct a robust peptide-based artificial esterase

Peptide-based artificial enzymes derived from the supramolecular assembly of short peptides have attracted growing attention in recent years. However, the stability of these artificial enzymes is still a problem since their noncovalent supramolecular structure is quite sensitive and frail under environmental conditions. In this study, we reported a covalent crosslinking strategy for the fabrication of a robust peptide-based artificial esterase. Inspired by the di-tyrosine bonds in many natural structural proteins, multi-tyrosines were designed into a peptide sequence with histidine as the catalytic residue for the ester hydrolysis reaction. Upon the photo-induced oxidation reaction, the short peptide YYHYY rapidly transferred into nanoparticle-shaped aggregates (CL-YYHYY) and displayed improved esterase-like catalytic activity than some previously reported noncovalent-based artificial esterases. Impressively, CL-YYHYY showed outstanding reusability and superior stability under high temperature, strong acid and alkaline and organic solvent conditions. This study provides a promising approach to improving the catalytic activity and stability of peptide-based artificial enzymes.