engleski

Bio-inspired gelators. Synthesis and self-assembly of peptidic gelators containing KLVFF sequence of the amyloid Aβ- protein.

The amyloid fibrils self-assembled from Aβ-protein are considered the most responsible for the formation of senile plaques of Alzheimer's disease. The KLVFF sequence of Aβ-protein seems to be the most important for its self-assembly into fibrous amyloidal aggregates and some short peptides containing the same sequence were also shown to bind to the amyloids. [1, 2]. A series of KLVFF containing peptidomimetics substituted at N and C termini with alkyl chains of various lengths were synthesized and tested for gelation of water and DMSO/water mixtures. The results of spectroscopic (1H-NMR, FTIR), morphology (TEM) and X-ray diffraction studies of formed gels revealed formation of fibrous aggregates with 8-10 nm diameters (diameter of Aβ-fibrils 10 nm) stabilized by β-sheet type hydrogen-bonding between KLVFF fragments. An artificial β-breaker molecule was designed by molecular modeling and shown to prevent efficiently aggregation of KLVFF-gelators and formation of the gels.

Bio-inspired gelators; self-assembly; amyloid Aβ- protein

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