Simultaneous Occurrence of Nanospheres and Nanofibers Self‐Assembled from Achiral Tripeptides

Abstract

The achiral tripeptide Boc‐Aib‐MABA‐Aib‐OMe has the ability to co‐exist as nanospheres and as a network of nanofibers in methanol. Furthermore, AFM and TEM images show the presence of bulges in the network of nanofibers. Interestingly, the formation of nanofibers is seen to emerge from the outer boundary of the spherical structures. Some of the nanofibers curl up at the tip and later result in the formation of hollow nanospheres with thick boundaries. The presence of β‐turn‐like structures with hydrogen bonding is observed using FT‐IR studies. The presence of hydrogen bonding is also demonstrated by using NMR studies.

Diketopiperazine Gels: New Horizons from the Self-Assembly of Cyclic Dipeptides

“…In particular, self-assembling short-peptides represent cheap building blocks for large-scale production, and with overall promising properties in terms of bioactivity [ 2 ] and biocompatibility to achieve functional materials [ 3 , 4 ]. The large chemical diversity they provide ensures continuous advancements, and even considering just the publications in the last couple of years, numerous regard self-assembling tripeptides [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ] and dipeptides [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Furthermore, the study of such simple systems could advance the understanding of prebiotic chemistry, relative to the potential role of peptide-based organized structures in the emergence of catalytic activity [ 26 ].…”