Scientists have developed methods to control the precise shapes and “handedness” of peptoids, protein-like molecules inspired by natural molecular structures, which are vital for applications like drug delivery and disease therapy. Their research highlights their innovative techniques in creating functional peptoid-based materials for various technological and medical uses.
“Depending on their shape, proteins can fit together with other proteins to perform functions or malfunction by clumping together, as observed indisease,” said materials scientist Chun-Long Chen. “Understanding how they assemble, and the origins of their particular shape, could be significant for various applications such as drug delivery, diagnostics, and therapeutics.”, Chen and his PNNL colleagues investigated how to control these shapes by creating peptoid-based materials inspired by nature.
For this experiment, Chen and his team chose to pursue corkscrew-like helical structures because of their biological importance. In fact, most proteins contain these basic helical structures. Using a combination of experimental and computational techniques, Chen and his team discovered a way to control the handedness of a peptoid helix. Similar to proteins, peptoids are created from amino-like building blocks. Every building block has the same “backbone” atoms that form peptoid bonds, however, each individual link in the chain can vary tremendously. Chen’s group found that they could control the shape of the helix by manipulating the sequence of the peptoid side chains.