Nanostructures from Single Amino Acid-Based Molecules: Stability, Fibrillation, Encapsulation, and Fabrication of Silver Nanoparticles

The small‐sized molecules that have been developed from single hydrophobic amino acids (Phe, Trp, Tyr and Leu) by suitably protecting the –NH2 and –CO2H groups generate diverse nanoscopic structures – such as nanorods, nanofibrils, nanotubes, and nanovesicles – depending upon the protection paramete...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advanced functional materials 2011-11, Vol.21 (21), p.4126-4136
Main Authors: Koley, Pradyot, Pramanik, Animesh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Encapsulation
hybrid materials
Nanocomposites
Nanomaterials
Nanoparticles
Nanorods
Nanostructure
nanostructures
self-assembly
Silver
Stability
stimuli-responsive materials
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Summary:The small‐sized molecules that have been developed from single hydrophobic amino acids (Phe, Trp, Tyr and Leu) by suitably protecting the –NH2 and –CO2H groups generate diverse nanoscopic structures – such as nanorods, nanofibrils, nanotubes, and nanovesicles – depending upon the protection parameters and solvent polarity. The vesicular structures get disrupted in the presence of various salts, such as KCl, CaCl2, (NH4)2SO4 and N(n‐Bu)4Br. Insertion of unnatural (o/m/p)‐aminobenzoic acids as a protecting group and the lack of conventional peptide bonds in the molecules give the nanostructures proteolytic stability. The nanostructures also show significant thermal stability along with a morphological transformation upon heat treatment. Our in vitro studies reveal that the addition of micromolar concentration “curcumin” significantly reduces the formation of amyloid‐like fibrils. These diverse nanostructures are used as a template for fabricating silver nanoparticles on their outer surfaces as well as in the inner part, followed by calcination in air which helps to obtain a 1D silver nanostructure. Furthermore, the nanovesicles are observed to encapsulate a potent drug (curcumin) and other biologically important molecules, which could be released through salt‐triggered disruption of vesicles. This report describes the synthesis, characterization, and various potential applications of a new set of single amino acid‐based molecules that can generate diverse kinds of nanostructures – such as nanorods, nanofibrils, nanotubes, and nanovesicles – depending upon the protection parameters and solvent polarity
ISSN:1616-301X
1616-3028
1616-3028
DOI:10.1002/adfm.201101465