Self-assembling peptides represent a growing class of inexpensive, environmentally benign, nanostructured materials. In particular, diphenylalanine (FF) self-assembles into nanotubes with remarkable strength and thermal stability that have found use in a wide variety of applications, including as sacrificial templates and scaffolds for structuring inorganic materials and as interfacial "nanoforests" for superhydrophobic surfaces and high-performance supercapacitors and biosensors. However, little is known about the assembly mechanisms of FF nanotubes or the forces underlying their stability. Here, we perform a variety of molecular dynamics simulations on both zwitterionic and capped (uncharged) versions of the FF peptide to understand the early stages of self-assembly. We compare these results to simulations of the proposed nanotube X-ray crystal structure. When comparing the zwitterionic and uncharged FF peptides, we find that, while electrostatic interactions steer the former into more ordered dimers and trimers, the hydrophobic side chain interactions play a strong role in determining the structures of larger oligomers. Simulations of the crystal structure fragment also suggest that the strongest interactions occur between side chains, not between the charged termini that form salt bridges. We conclude that the amphiphilic nature of FF is key to understanding its self-assembly, and that the early precursors to nanotube structures are likely to involve substantial hydrophobic clustering, rather than hexamer ring motifs as has been previously suggested.

The diphenylalanine (FF) peptide self-assembles into a variety of nanostructures, including hollow nanotubes that form in aqueous solution with an unusually high degree of hydrophilic surface area. In contrast, diphenylalanine can also be vapor-deposited in vacuum to produce rodlike assemblies that are extremely hydrophobic; in this process FF has been found to dehydrate and cyclize to cyclo-diphenylalanine (cyclo-FF). An earlier study used all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to understand the early stages of the self-assembly of linear-FF peptides in solution. Here, we examine the self-assembly of cyclo-FF peptides in vacuum and compare it to these previous results to understand the differences underlying the two cases. Using all-atom replica exchange MD simulations, we consider systems of 50 cyclo-FF peptides and examine free energies along various structural association coordinates. We find that cyclo-FF peptides form ladder-like structures connected by double hydrogen bonds, and that multiple such ladders linearly align in a cooperative manner to form larger-scale, elongated assemblies. Unlike linear-FFs which mainly assemble through the interplay between hydrophobic and hydrophilic interactions, the assembly of cyclo-FFs in vacuum is primarily driven by electrostatic interactions along the backbone that induce alignment at long-range, followed by van der Waals interactions between side chains that become important for close-range packing. While both solution and vacuum phase driving forces result in ladder-like structures, the clustering of ladders is opposite: linear-FF peptide ladders form assemblies with side-chains buried inward, while cyclo-FF ladders point outward.

The assembly of peptides into ordered nanostructures is increasingly recognized as both a bioengineering tool for generating new materials and a critical aspect of aggregation processes that underlie neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease. There is a major problem in understanding how extremely subtle sequence changes can lead to profound and often unexpected differences in self-assembly behavior. To better delineate the complex interplay of different microscopic driving forces in such cases, we develop a methodology to quantify and compare the propensity of different peptide sequences to form small oligomers during early self-assembly stages. This umbrella-sampling replica exchange molecular dynamics method performs a replica exchange molecular dynamics simulation along peptide association reaction coordinates using umbrella restraints. With this method, we study a set of sequence-similar peptides that differ in net charge: K þ TVIIE À , K þ TVIIE, and þ K þ TVIIE. Interestingly, experiments show that only the monovalent peptide, K þ TVIIE, forms fibrils, whereas the others do not. We examine dimer, trimer, and tetramer formation processes of these peptides, and compute high-accuracy potential of mean force association curves. The potential of mean forces recapitulate a higher stability and equilibrium constant of the fibril-forming peptide, similar to experiment, but reveal that entropic contributions to association free energies can play a surprisingly significant role. The simulations also show behavior reminiscent of experimental aggregate polymorphism, revealed in multiple stable conformational states and association pathways. Our results suggest that sequence changes can have significant effects on self-assembly through not only direct peptide-peptide interactions but conformational entropies and degeneracies as well.

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Peptide aggregation frequently involves sequences with strong homophilic binding character, i.e., sequences that self-assemble with like species in a crowded cellular environment, in the face of a multitude of other peptides or proteins as potential heterophilic binding partners. What kinds of sequences display a strong tendency towards homophilic binding and self-assembly, and what are the origins of this behavior? Here, we consider how sequence specificity in oligomerization processes plays out in a simple two-dimensional (2D) lattice statistical-thermodynamic peptide model that permits exhaustive examination of the entire sequence and configurational landscapes. We find that sequences with strong self-specificities have either alternating hydrophobic and hydrophilic residues or short patches of hydrophobic residues, both which minimize intramolecular hydrophobic interactions in part due to the constraints of the 2D lattice. We also find that these specificities are highly sensitive to entropic and free energetic features of the unbound conformational state, such that direct binding interaction energies alone do not capture the complete behavior. These results suggest that the ability of particular peptide sequences to self-assemble and aggregate in a many-protein environment reflects a precise balance of direct binding interactions and behavior in the unbound (monomeric) state.