Advances in peptide self-assembly provide strong incentives to fabricate novel nanostructured biomaterials. Recently, we have reported that fine tuning of peptide sequence, stereochemistry, and solution pH enables the construction of 3D-nanoarchitectures, including supramolecular nanofibers, by controlled self-assembly of 16-mer peptide building blocks [1,2]. Here, we report a novel stimuli-responsive self-assembling system by using artificial peptides having enzyme-active site in order to control spontaneous assembling process. Amphiphilic block peptides 1 and 2, in which triblock-type P-sheet forming peptide (L_4K_8L_4) was conjugated with relatively hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) unit [3] or D,L-alternating oligolysine unit through thrombin-cleavable site (VPRGS), were designed and employed as building blocks for self-assembly (Fig. 1). The conformational and self-assembling properties of 1 and 2 in response to enzyme triggering were investigated, especially in consideration of the effect of molecular structures of hydrophilic units. Establishing a facile methodology to fabricate 3D nano-objects at controlled timing is attractive in order to advance a bottom-up nanotechnology.
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