Macromolecular approaches for the preparation of artificial proteins

提出了三种不同的大分子方法用于蛋白质模拟物的开发。第一，非共价的方法探讨了基于肽的二嵌段共聚物的自组装。自组装是由疏水力和肽块之间的特异性相互作用的组合驱动的。二嵌段共聚物分子被设计成在水溶液中自组装成具有明确尺寸的聚集体，并允许共价后修饰以固定蛋白质模拟物的结构。第二种方法涉及非线性多肽结构的设计和合成。将研究的具体实例包括星形和树枝状移植多肽。这样的分子本身就具有致密的球形形状，并且不需要折叠或其他自组织过程来采用蛋白质样结构。第三种方法侧重于制备和表征的多域肽共聚物，含有明确的二级结构元素。预期这些二级结构元件的分子内缔合将诱导多肽形成蛋白质样结构。

Three different macromolecular approaches for the development of protein mimics are proposed. The first, non-covalent approach explores the self-assembly of peptide-based diblock copolymers. The self-assembly is driven by a combination of hydrophobic forces and specific interactions between the peptide blocks. The diblock copolymer molecules are designed to self-assemble into aggregates of well-defined size and in aqueous solution, and allow a covalent post-modification in order to fix the structure of the protein-mimics. The second approach involves the design and synthesis of non-linear polypeptide architectures. Specific examples that will be investigated include star-shaped and dendritic graft polypeptides. Such molecules already inherently possess a dense, globular shape, and do not require folding or other self-organization processes to adopt protein-like structures. The third approach focuses on the preparation and characterization of multidomain peptide copolymers that contain well-defined secondary structural elements. It is anticipated that the intramolecular association of these secondary structural elements will induce of the polypeptide into protein-like architectures.