Self-Assembly of Peptide-Oligonucleotide Nanostructures

Systems chemistry attempts to mimic the complex biological networks within synthetic chemical framework. Analysis of their dynamic self-organization, as well as self-replication and catalytic properties, can help us to better understand the bottom-up organization of supramolecular architectures. Thus, we investigate self-assembly of synthetic peptide-oligonucleotide conjugates. Although peptide- and nucleic acids- based self-organizing systems are well documented in the literature, artificially synthesized hybrid molecules present a unique family of compounds. Studying such conjugates will offer new superior soft matter suitable for many applications and might even shed light on bottom-up scenarios related to the origin of life. Here, we present a set of self-assembling peptide-DNA hybrids that have been designed and synthesized. Short nucleic acid segments have been attached to amphiphilic replicating peptides previously explored in our lab^1-3. The basic system consists of two conjugates, for which the oligonucleotide segment of one is complementary to the other (Scheme 1). We demonstrate the self-assembly of our system into different morphologies: fibers and sphere-like structures. To the best of our knowledge, this study proposes the first systematic analysis of structural and functional characteristics of small peptide-DNA assemblies.

REFERENCES

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