Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 85 Saint Nicholas Terrace, New York, NY 10031, USA.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Science. 2017 Jun 9;356(6342):1064-1068. doi: 10.1126/science.aal5005.
Melanins are a family of heterogeneous polymeric pigments that provide ultraviolet (UV) light protection, structural support, coloration, and free radical scavenging. Formed by oxidative oligomerization of catecholic small molecules, the physical properties of melanins are influenced by covalent and noncovalent disorder. We report the use of tyrosine-containing tripeptides as tunable precursors for polymeric pigments. In these structures, phenols are presented in a (supra-)molecular context dictated by the positions of the amino acids in the peptide sequence. Oxidative polymerization can be tuned in a sequence-dependent manner, resulting in peptide sequence-encoded properties such as UV absorbance, morphology, coloration, and electrochemical properties over a considerable range. Short peptides have low barriers to application and can be easily scaled, suggesting near-term applications in cosmetics and biomedicine.
黑色素是一类具有不同结构的聚合色素，具有保护紫外线 (UV)、结构支撑、着色和自由基清除等功能。黑色素由儿茶酚小分子的氧化寡聚形成，其物理性质受到共价和非共价无序的影响。我们报告了使用含有酪氨酸的三肽作为可调节的聚合色素前体。在这些结构中，酚类物质以由肽序列中氨基酸位置决定的超分子结构呈现。氧化聚合可以以序列依赖性的方式进行调节，从而导致肽序列编码的性质，如在相当大的范围内的 UV 吸收、形态、着色和电化学性质。短肽的应用障碍较低，易于规模化，这表明它们在化妆品和生物医学领域有近期的应用前景。
