Building Nanowires from Micelles: Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Alternating Amphiphilic Glycopolypeptide Brushes with Pendants of High-Mannose Glycodendron and Oligophenylalanine

J Am Chem Soc. 2016 Sep 28;138(38):12387-94. doi: 10.1021/jacs.6b05044. Epub 2016 Aug 3.

Abstract

Mimicking the diverse glyco-conjugate structures in nature is always the dream of scientists. Right now, hierarchical self-assembled structures of natural conjugates of peptides and sugars could not easily be achieved via linear glycopolypeptide with monosaccharides as attachments. In this work, by using a series of well-designed alternating amphiphilic glycopolypeptide brushes (AAGBs) with pendants of glycodendrons and short peptides, various self-assembled morphologies were achieved, including nanowires, nanoribbon, and compound micelles mainly depending on the number ratio of the sugar units to the amino acids species (S/F). Among these morphologies, nanowire attracted our great attention. TEM studies demonstrated that it is formed via a hierarchical self-assembly, i.e., a series of successive processes, including micellization, micelles alignment forming nanofilament, branching of the nanofilaments by micelles, and finally nanowire formation. As far as we know, such hierarchical self-assembly process with high complexity has not been observed in literature for glycopolypeptides even polypeptides, which will deepen our understanding on self-assembly mechanism of natural glyco-conjugates and expand the library of biomimetic materials.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Glycopeptides / chemistry*
  • Mannose / chemistry*
  • Micelles
  • Models, Molecular
  • Molecular Structure
  • Nanowires*
  • Surface-Active Agents / chemistry*

Substances

  • Glycopeptides
  • Micelles
  • Surface-Active Agents
  • Mannose