Synthesis and Studies of Water-Soluble, Alpha-Helical Polypeptide with Charged Side Chains

在这个由化学学部大分子、超分子和纳米化学项目资助的项目中，伊利诺伊大学香槟分校的程建军将合成和研究具有带电荷侧链的水溶性α -螺旋多肽。多肽是一种重要的材料，具有广泛的用途和独特的二级结构。带电荷侧链的水溶性多肽由于侧链的电荷斥力，通常采用随机线圈构象。在这项研究中，我们的目标是通过延长含电荷的氨基酸链，将电荷定位在多肽主链的远端，从而开发水溶性的α -螺旋多肽，然后研究它们的生物物理性质。将进行初步研究，以测试这些聚合物在细胞渗透和细菌抑制中的应用。更广泛的影响包括培训本科生和研究生，参加伊利诺斯大学的暑期高中外展和本科生扩大参与活动，以及通过在期刊上发表文章和在会议上发表演讲来传播研究成果。多肽是化学上连接的氨基酸链，是蛋白质的组成部分。这项工作将扩大化学的范围，可用于创造模仿天然生物材料的新大分子，并将使人们更好地理解肽如何在水中形成稳定的二级结构，如α -螺旋结构。这些研究的结果可能对蛋白质基材料的重要应用产生许多重要的长期影响，包括在医学、药物加工和纳米技术中的长期应用。

In this project funded by the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, Jianjun Cheng of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will synthesize and study water-soluble, alpha-helical polypeptides with charged side chains. Polypeptides are important materials with broad applications and characteristic secondary structures. Water-soluble polypeptides bearing charged side chains typically adopt random coil conformations due to side-chain charge repulsion. In this study, we aim to develop water-soluble, alpha-helical polypeptides by elongating charge-containing amino-acid chains to position the charges distally from the polypeptide backbone and then to study their biophysical properties. Preliminary studies will be performed to test these polymers for use in cell penetration and bacterial inhibition. The broader impacts involve training undergraduate and graduate students, participating in summer high school outreach and undergraduate broadening participation activities at the University of Illinois, and disseminating research results through publications in journals and presentations at conferences. Peptides are chains of chemically linked amino acids and are the components of proteins. This work will expand the repertoire of chemistry that can be used to create new large molecules that mimic natural biomaterials and will lead to a better understanding of how peptides can be engineered to form stable secondary structures, such as an alpha-helix, in water. The results of these studies could have many important long term impacts on applications in which protein-based materials are important, including long term applications in medicine, pharmaceutical processing, and nanotechnology.