Bioinspired Design of Nanocages by Self-Assembling Triskelion Peptide Elements†
We thank Professors A. Sharma (Chem Engg, IITK) and S. Ganesh (BSBE, IITK) for access to microscopic facilities, and ACMS, IIT-Kanpur, for SEM measurements. Dr. E. Klein is acknowledged for helping with E-SEM analyses. S.G. thanks IIT-Kanpur for a predoctoral research fellowship, and M.R. gratefully acknowledges the support of the Clore Foundation Scholars Programme and the Dan David Scholarship Award. This work was supported by an Indo-Israel International S&T Project sponsored by the DST, India, and MOST, Israel (S.V. and E.G.). This work was also partially supported through a Swarnajayanti Fellowship (DST, India; to S.V.).
Graphical Abstract
Winning the three-legged race: Rapid self-organization of a tripodal aromatic dipeptide conjugate on a tris(2-aminoethyl)amine scaffold leads to a vesicular morphology (upper image). The structures can trap a fluorescent dye (lower image) and release it upon acidification, suggesting the use of such stimuli-responsive materials as potential delivery vehicles.
