A novel nanostructured supramolecular hydrogel self-assembled from tetraphenylethylene-capped dipeptides

作者:Yeh Mei Yu; Huang Chen Wei; Chang Jui Wen; Huang Yu Tang; Lin Jhong Hua; Hsu Shu Min; Hung Shih Chieh; Lin Hsin Chieh*
来源:Soft Matter, 2016, 12(30): 6347-6351.
DOI:10.1039/c6sm00755d

摘要

Herein, we report a tetraphenylethylene-diglycine (TPE-GG) hydrogelator from a systematic study of TPE-capped dipeptides with various amphiphilic properties. From a chemical design, we found that the hydrogelation of TPE-GG molecules can be utilized to generate supramolecular nanostructures with a large TPE-based nanobelt width (similar to 300 nm) and lateral dimension ratio (>30 fold). In addition, TPE-GG has the lowest molecular weight and minimum number of atoms compared to any TPE-capped peptide hydrogelator reported to date. This minimal self-assembled hydrogelator can fundamentally achieve the gel features compared with other TPE-capped peptides. A combined experimental and computational study indicates the pi-pi interactions, electrostatic interactions and hydrogen-bonding interactions are the major driving forces behind the formation of self-assembled nanobelts. This study demonstrates the importance of structure-property relationships and provides new insights into the design of supramolecular nanomaterials.