Homochirality in peptides is crucial in sustaining "like-like" intermolecular interactions that allow the formation of assemblies and aggregates and is ultimately responsible for the resulting material properties.Withthe help of aseries of stereoisomers of the tripeptide F-F-L, we demonstrate the critical role that peptide stereochemistry playsi nt he selfassembly of peptides,guided by molecular recognition, and for self-sorting.H omochiral self-assemblies are thermally and mechanically more robust compared to heterochiral selfassemblies.M orphological studies of the multicomponent peptide systems showed that aggregates formed from homochiral peptides possessed au niform nano-fibrous structure, whereas heterochiral systems resulted in self-sorted systems with ah eterogeneous morphology.I ne ssence,h omochiral peptides form the stronger aggregates,w hichm ay be one of reasons why homochirality is preferred in living systems.Supportinginformation and the ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under: https://doi.
Bio‐organometallic ferrocene‐containing amino acids and peptides have been reported to form gels and are interesting to study due to their structural properties and applications for biological purposes. In this study, a ferrocene‐dicarboxylic acid derivative of the dipeptide tryptophan–tryptophan was investigated. The indolic nitrogen in the amino acid tryptophan is important for biological functions due to its role in hydrogen bonding. Here, intermolecular interactions with the indolic nitrogen allow this conjugate to self‐assemble into a fibrous supramolecular structure that forms a stable gel. Rheological analysis demonstrates the self‐healing nature of this gel. Interestingly, X‐ray analysis of this ferrocene–peptide conjugate reveals close contacts involving tryptophan, in particular the indole NH group in interactions with an adjacent neighboring molecule.
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