Volume 113, Issue 2 e24224
REVIEW

Multivalent display of chemical signals on self-assembled peptide scaffolds

Hannah E. Distaffen

Hannah E. Distaffen

Department of Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA

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Christopher W. Jones

Christopher W. Jones

Department of Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA

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Brittany L. Abraham

Brittany L. Abraham

Department of Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA

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Bradley L. Nilsson

Corresponding Author

Bradley L. Nilsson

Department of Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA

Correspondence

Bradley L. Nilsson, Department of Chemistry, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627-0216, USA.

Email: [email protected]

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First published: 18 March 2021
Citations: 12

Hannah E. Distaffen and Christopher W. Jones have contributed equally to this work.

Funding information: National Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number: CHE-1904528; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Grant/Award Number: R01 HL138538

Abstract

Self-assembled peptide materials have emerged as promising bioinspired tools for applications that include regenerative medicine, drug delivery, antimicrobial and vaccine development, optics, and catalysis. Peptide self-assembly mediated by noncovalent hydrogen bonding, coulombic, hydrophobic, and aromatic interactions gives rise to a variety of supramolecular structures that reflect on the nature of the constituent peptides. The emergent properties of these supramolecular peptide materials often depend on the multivalent presentation of functional appendages on the self-assembled scaffold. For example, the multivalent display of cell-signaling motifs on self-assembled peptide nanofibrils provides materials that are excellent extracellular matrix mimetics for tissue engineering applications. This review includes a discussion of chemical strategies that address the challenge of appending functional signal motifs in a multivalent display on self-assembled peptide and protein materials. In addition, recent examples of supramolecular peptide materials that rely on the multivalent display of chemical signals for the desired applications are presented. Collectively, this discussion illustrates the potential of self-assembled peptides as sustainable materials to address challenges in contemporary materials science and provides principles for the design of next-generation agents for a variety of applications.

Graphical Abstract

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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