Peptide ‘bundlemer’ design for model protein nanoparticle creation and hierarchical solution assembly

A new solution assembled system comprised of computationally designed coiled coil bundle motifs, also known as ‘bundlemers’, will be introduced as model nanoparticles. The molecules are not natural sequences and provide opportunity for controlled solution behavior and arbitrary soft matter creation with peptides. With control of all amino acid side chain display (both natural and non-natural) throughout the bundles, desired physical and covalent (through ‘click’ chemistry) interactions have been designed to control solution interparticle interactions in both individual bundlemers as well as polymers and networks of connected bundlemers. One-dimensional nanostructures span rigid rods that produce a wide variety of liquid crystal phases to semi-flexible chains, the flexibility of which are controlled by the interbundle linking chemistry. The particles and chains are also responsive to salt and pH since computational design is used to design bundlemers with different net charged character in order to manipulate their interactions in solution. Finally, other patches of interaction can be designed on the surface of the particles to dictate their interaction in solution and the control of particle assembly (e.g., crystalline lattice vs. amorphous aggregate).