Thermoresponsive Self-Assembly of Short Elastin-Like Polypentapeptides and Their Poly(ethylene Glycol) Derivatives

Michal Pechar, Jirí Brus, Libor Kostka, Cestmír Konák, Martina Urbanová, Miroslav Slouf

Macromol Biosci. 2007 Jan 5;7(1):56-69.

PMID: 17238231

Abstract:

Short polypeptides with four pentad repeats, (VPGVG)(4) and (VPAVG)(4), were synthesised by manual fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl/tert-butyl (Fmoc/t-Bu) solid phase peptide synthesis using a convergent approach. In the next step, the peptides were coupled via their N-terminus with activated semi-telechelic poly(ethylene glycol) O-(N-Fmoc-2-aminoethyl)-O'-(2-carboxyethyl)undeca(ethylene glycol) (Fmoc-PEG-COOH) to yield monodisperse Fmoc-PEG-peptide diblock copolymer. Both the presence of the terminal hydrophobic Fmoc group and the hydrophilic PEG chain in the copolymers were shown to play a crucial role in their self-associative behaviour, leading to reversible formation of supramolecular thermoresponsive assemblies. The peptides and their PEG derivatives were characterised by HPLC, NMR and MALDI-TOF MS. The associative behaviour of the peptides and their PEG derivatives was studied by dynamic light scattering, MAS NMR and phase contrast microscopy. [image: see text]

Chemicals Related in the Paper:

Catalog Number	Product Name	Structure	CAS Number	Price
LS7411195	O-(2-Carboxyethyl)-O′-methyl-undecaethylene glycol			Price