Introducing d‑Amino Acid or Simple
Glycoside into Small Peptides to Enable Supramolecular Hydrogelators
to Resist Proteolysis
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Abstract
Here we report the examination of two convenient strategies,
the
use of a d-amino acid residue or a glycoside segment, for
increasing the proteolytic resistance of supramolecular hydrogelators
based on small peptides. Our results show that the introduction of d-amino acid or glycoside to the peptides significantly increases
the resistance of the hydrogelators against proteinase K, a powerful
endopeptidase. The insertion of d-amino acid in the peptide
backbone, however, results relatively low storage moduli of the hydrogels,
likely due to the disruption of the superstructures of the molecular
assembly. In contrast, the introduction of a glycoside to the C-terminal
of peptide enhances the biostability of the hydrogelators without
the significant decrease of the storage moduli of the hydrogels. This
work suggests that the inclusion of a simple glycogen in hydrogelators
is a useful approach to increase their biostability, and the gained
understanding from the work may ultimately lead to development of
hydrogels of functional peptides for biomedical applications that
require long-term biostability