Enhanced Mechanical Rigidity of Hydrogels Formed from Enantiomeric Peptide Assemblies

摘要

Chirality can be used as a design tool to control the mechanical rigidity of hydrogels formed from self-assembling peptides. Hydrogels prepared from enantiomeric mixtures of self-assembling β-hairpins show nonaddi-tive, synergistic, enhancement in material rigidity compared to gels prepared from either pure enantiomer, with the racemic hydrogel showing the greatest effect. CD spectros-copy, TEM, and AFM indicate that this enhancement is defined by nanoscale interactions between enantiomers in the self-assembled state.