Hydrogelation of bile acid–peptide conjugates and in situ synthesis of silver and gold nanoparticles in the hydrogel matrix

Abstract

A number of bile acid–peptide conjugates were synthesized and their hydrogelation properties were studied. These gels were used as scaffolds to in situ make Ag and Au nanoparticle–gel hybrids.

Supramolecular Gels from Conjugates of Bile Acids and Amino Acids and Their Applications

“…Compound 11 did not form a gel under identical conditions because of its higher solubility (Table ). These results suggest that an appropriate balance of hydrophobic and hydrogen‐bonding interactions in the gelator molecules is important for effective gelation by these compounds …”

“…We have recently shown bile acid–dipeptide conjugates to be efficient hydrogelators wherein the nature and position of the amino acid residues in the dipeptides play important roles in gelation. These results, and the recently published interesting biological properties of single amino acids protected at the N‐terminal with a bile acid backbone, prompted us to further explore the potential of hydrogelation of these molecules.…”

Peptide Gelators to Template Inorganic Nanoparticle Formation

“…In other strategies, photoreduction is used, and several examples have been described for the in situ formation for instance of silver NPs [ 40 , 41 , 42 ]. Additionally, the photoreduction of gold can be performed on the surface of peptides as capping agents to stabilize the resulting NPs, for application in the biochemical field, such as siRNA vectors for oncotherapy [ 43 ].…”

Thermal and stress tension dual-responsive photonic crystal nanocomposite hydrogels

“…21 Hydrogels have outstanding biocompatibility and hydrophilicity, so they have great potential in the eld of biosensing and biomedicine. [22][23][24][25][26] However, their practical applications are severely limited by their poor mechanical properties and the high swelling rate of chemically cross-linked conventional organic polymer hydrogels (OPHs).…”