Self-assembly of peptide nanocapsules by a solvent concentration gradient

Haopeng Li; Xuliang Qian; Harini Mohanram; Xiao Han; Huitang Qi; Guijin Zou; Fenghou Yuan; Ali Miserez; Tian Liu; Qing Yang; Huajian Gao; Jing Yu

doi:10.1038/s41565-024-01654-w

Self-assembly of peptide nanocapsules by a solvent concentration gradient

Nat Nanotechnol. 2024 Apr 26. doi: 10.1038/s41565-024-01654-w. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Haopeng Li^#^{1

2}, Xuliang Qian^#³, Harini Mohanram⁴, Xiao Han¹, Huitang Qi², Guijin Zou^{3

5}, Fenghou Yuan², Ali Miserez^{1

6}, Tian Liu⁷, Qing Yang^{8

9}, Huajian Gao^{10

11

12}, Jing Yu^{13

14}

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
² MOE Key Laboratory of Bio-Intelligent Manufacturing, School of Bioengineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China.
³ School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
⁴ School of Biological Sciences, Division of Structural and Computational Biology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
⁵ Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore, Singapore.
⁶ Biological and Biomimetic Material Laboratory (BBML), Center for Sustainable Materials (SusMat), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
⁷ MOE Key Laboratory of Bio-Intelligent Manufacturing, School of Bioengineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. tianliu@dlut.edu.cn.
⁸ State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China. qingyang@caas.cn.
⁹ Guangdong Laboratory of Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, China. qingyang@caas.cn.
¹⁰ School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore. gao.huajian@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹¹ Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore, Singapore. gao.huajian@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹² Mechano-X Institute, Applied Mechanics Laboratory, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. gao.huajian@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
¹³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore. yujing@ntu.edu.sg.
¹⁴ Institute for Digital Molecular Analytics and Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore. yujing@ntu.edu.sg.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38671050
DOI: 10.1038/s41565-024-01654-w

Abstract

Biological systems can create materials with intricate structures and specialized functions. In comparison, precise control of structures in human-made materials has been challenging. Here we report on insect cuticle peptides that spontaneously form nanocapsules through a single-step solvent exchange process, where the concentration gradient resulting from the mixing of water and acetone drives the localization and self-assembly of the peptides into hollow nanocapsules. The underlying driving force is found to be the intrinsic affinity of the peptides for a particular solvent concentration, while the diffusion of water and acetone creates a gradient interface that triggers peptide localization and self-assembly. This gradient-mediated self-assembly offers a transformative pathway towards simple generation of drug delivery systems based on peptide nanocapsules.

Abstract

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