Biomolecules for non-biological things: Polymer, 2-d lattice, and liquid crystal construction through peptide ‘bundlemer’ design and solution assembly*

A new solution assembled system comprised of theoretically designed coiled coil bundle motifs, also known as ‘bundlemers’, will be introduced.  The molecules and nanostructures are not natural sequences and provide opportunity for arbitrary nanostructure creation with peptides.  With control of the display of all amino acid side chains (both natural and non-natural) throughout the peptide bundles, desired physical and covalent interactions have been designed to produce 1-D polymer nanostructures as well as 2-D assembled lattices.  One-dimensional nanostructures span exotically rigid rod molecules that produce a variety of liquid crystal phases to semi-flexible chains, the flexibility of which are controlled by the interbundle linking chemistry. Computational design is used to design bundlemers with different net charged character to manipulate their interactions in solution. Mixtures of oppositely charged bundlemer particles produce either 2-D lattice assemblies or amorphous aggregates, depending on the specific display of charge on the bundlemer particle surfaces.  Furthermore, bundlemer particles were designed with only positive or negative charges on the bundlemer to produce an overall particle charge as opposed to the typical mix of positive and negative charges on natural proteins that produce a net charge.  The exclusively positively or negatively charged particles produce unique assembly and liquid crystal behavior in solution and when used in mixtures.