Order originating from disorder with intrinsically disordered peptide amphiphiles

Amphiphilic molecules and their self-assembled structures have long been the target of extensive research due to their potential applications in fields ranging from materials design to biomedical. An emerging class of molecules, namely, peptide amphiphiles, combines key advantages and circumvents some disadvantages of conventional phospholipids and block copolymers. In this talk, I present new peptide amphiphiles composed of an intrinsically disordered peptide conjugated to variants of hydrophobic domains. These molecules termed intrinsically disordered peptide amphiphiles, exhibit a sharp pH-induced micellar phase-transition from low-dispersity spheres to extremely elongated worm-like micelles. I will present an experimental characterization of the transition and propose a theoretical model to describe the pH response. We also show the potential of the shape transition to serve as a mechanism for the design of a cargo hold-and-release application. Such amphiphilic systems demonstrate the power of tailoring the interactions between disordered peptides for various stimuli-responsive biomedical applications.