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Self-folding of supramolecular polymers into bioinspired topology.

Prabhu, DD; Aratsu, K; Kitamoto, Y; Ouchi, H; Ohba, T; Hollamby, MJ; Shimizu, N; Takagi, H; Haruki, R; Adachi, S-I; Yagai, S

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Authors

DD Prabhu

K Aratsu

Y Kitamoto

H Ouchi

T Ohba

N Shimizu

H Takagi

R Haruki

S-I Adachi

S Yagai



Abstract

Folding one-dimensional polymer chains into well-defined topologies represents an important organization process for proteins, but replicating this process for supramolecular polymers remains a challenging task. We report supramolecular polymers that can fold into protein-like topologies. Our approach is based on curvature-forming supramolecular rosettes, which affords kinetic control over the extent of helical folding in the resulting supramolecular fibers by changing the cooling rate for polymerization. When using a slow cooling rate, we obtained misfolded fibers containing a minor amount of helical domains that folded on a time scale of days into unique topologies reminiscent of the protein tertiary structures. Thermodynamic analysis of fibers with varying degrees of folding revealed that the folding is accompanied by a large enthalpic gain. The self-folding proceeds via ordering of misfolded domains in the main chain using helical domains as templates, as fully misfolded fibers prepared by a fast cooling rate do not self-fold.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 27, 2018
Publication Date Sep 7, 2018
Journal Science Advances
Publisher American Association for the Advancement of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 4
Issue 9
Article Number eaat8466
DOI https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat8466
Publisher URL http://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat8466

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