Self-assembly of aromatic α-amino acids into amyloid inspired nano/micro scaled architects

Abstract

In the pursuit for design of novel bio inspired materials, aromatic α-amino acids (phenylalanine, tyrosine, tryptophan and histidine) have been investigated for the generation of well-ordered self-assembled architects such as fibrils, rods, ribbons and twisted nanosheets in varying solvent systems. These nano/micro scaled architects were thoroughly characterized using FE-SEM, confocal microscopy, optical microscopy, ¹H NMR, FTIR, XRD and TGA. These self-assembled architects were histologically stained with Congo red and thioflavin T dyes for investigation of amyloid morphology which revealed that the deposited state of ordered assemblies exhibit specific characteristic of amyloid deposits. The self-assembly of aromatic amino acids was observed to be driven by non-covalent forces such as π-π stacking, van der Waals and electrostatic interaction.

Keywords: Amyloid; Aromatic amino acids; Nanostructures; Self-assembly; Supramolecular.