A5056977596- Supramolecular Self-Assembly in Materials
- Chemical Synthesis and Analysis
- Polydiacetylene-based materials and applications
- RNA Interference and Gene Delivery
- Glycosylation and Glycoproteins Research
- Photochromic and Fluorescence Chemistry
- Machine Learning in Bioinformatics
University of Minho
2022-2025
Small peptides with aromatic nuclei at the N-terminus have been shown to form bioactive, biocompatible, and biodegradable supramolecular peptide hydrogels. Novel heterocycle-dipeptide conjugates potential biological activity or application as drug carriers were synthesized by using S-(benzo[b]thiophene) N,S-(thieno [2,3-b]pyridine thieno[2,3-b]quinoline) heterocycles N-protective groups for dipeptides l-Phe-l-Phe l-Phe-l-Leu. The synthesis involved coupling heterocyclic carboxylic acids...
Over the years, our research group developed dehydrodipeptides N-capped with aromatic moieties as protease-resistant efficacious hydrogelators, affording self-assembled hydrogels at low (critical) concentrations. Dehydrotripeptides, different dipeptide sequences and (D,L) stereochemistry, open a wider chemical space for development of soft nanomaterials. In this work, small library N-succinylated dehydrotripeptides containing C-terminal dehydrophenylalanine (∆Phe) residue scrambled sequence...
Short peptides capped on the N-terminus with aromatic groups are often able to form supramolecular hydrogels-self-assembled networks of fibrils trap water molecules. Typically, these hydrogelators can stiff gels at concentrations 0.1 1.0 wt%-i.e. they consist mainly water. The properties soft materials mimic those extracellular matrix (ECM) biological tissue and therefore have found many biomedical uses in engineering, wound healing, drug delivery, biosensing bioprinting applications. In...
Self-assembly of peptide building blocks offers unique opportunities for bottom-up preparation exquisite nanostructures, nanoarchitectures, and nanostructured bulk materials, namely hydrogels. In this work we describe the synthesis, characterization, gelation, rheological properties new dehydrotripeptides, Cbz-L-Lys(Cbz)-L,D-Asp-∆Phe-OH (2-Naph)-L-Lys(2-Naph)-L,D-Asp-∆Phe-OH, containing a N-terminal lysine residue Nα,ε-bis-capped with carboxybenzyl (Cbz) 2-Naphthylacetyl (2-Naph) aromatic...
Employing amino acids and peptides as molecular building blocks provides unique opportunities for generating supramolecular hydrogels, owing to their inherent biological origin, bioactivity, biocompatibility, biodegradability. However, they can suffer from proteolytic degradation. Short (<8 acids) attached an aromatic capping group are particularly attractive alternatives minimalistic low weight hydrogelators. Peptides with critical gelation concentrations (CGCs) especially desirable, the...