Chiral inversion induced by aromatic interactions in short peptide assembly

Although hydrophobic interactions provide the main driving force for initial peptide aggregation, their role in regulating suprastructure handedness of higher-order architectures remains largely unknown. We here interrogate the effects of hydrophobic amino acids on handedness at various assembly stages of peptide amphiphiles. Our studies reveal that relative to aliphatic side chains, aromatic side chains set the twisting directions of single β-strands due to their strong steric repulsion to the backbone, and upon packing into multi-stranded β-sheets, the side-chain aromatic interactions between strands form the aromatic ladders with a directional preference. This ordering not only leads to parallel β-sheet arrangements but also induces the chiral flipping over of single β-strands within a β-sheet. In contrast, the lack of orientational hydrophobic interactions in the assembly of aliphatic peptides implies no chiral inversion upon packing into β-sheets. This study opens an avenue to harness peptide aggregates with targeted handedness via aromatic side-chain interactions.