State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, P. R. China.
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Membrane Science and Desalination Technology, Tianjin 300072, P. R. China.
Langmuir. 2020 Sep 8;36(35):10361-10370. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c01338. Epub 2020 Aug 27.
Biopolymers such as polysaccharides and proteins have been widely used for the chiral separation of various components due to the intrinsic chirality of the polymers. Amyloid-like short peptides can also self-assemble into diverse chiral supramolecular nanostructures or polymers with precisely tailored architectures driving by noncovalent interactions. However, the use of such supramolecular nanostructures for the resolution and separation of chiral components remains largely unexplored. Here, we report that the self-assembled peptide supramolecular nanostructures can be used for the highly efficient chiral separation of various enantiomers. By rationally designing the constituent amino acid sequence of the peptides and the self-assembling environment, we can fabricate supramolecular polymers with distinct surface charges and architectures, including nanohelices, nanoribbons, nanosheets, nanofibrils, and nanospheres. The various supramolecular nanostructures were then used to resolve the racemic mixtures of α-methylbenzylamine, 2-phenylpropionic acid, and 1-phenylethanol. The results indicated that the self-assembled peptide polymers showed excellent enantioselective separation efficiency for different chiral molecules. The enantioselective separation efficiency of the peptide nanostructures can be tailored by changing their surface charges, morphology, and the constituent amino acid sequences of the peptides.
生物聚合物如多糖和蛋白质由于其聚合物的固有手性而被广泛用于各种成分的手性分离。类似淀粉样的短肽也可以通过非共价相互作用自组装成具有精确剪裁结构的各种手性超分子纳米结构或聚合物。然而，此类超分子纳米结构在手性成分的拆分和分离中的应用仍在很大程度上未被探索。在这里，我们报告称，自组装的肽超分子纳米结构可用于高效拆分各种对映异构体。通过合理设计肽的组成氨基酸序列和自组装环境，我们可以制造具有不同表面电荷和结构的超分子聚合物，包括纳米螺旋、纳米带、纳米片、纳米纤维和纳米球。然后，将各种超分子纳米结构用于拆分α-甲基苄胺、2-苯基丙酸和 1-苯乙醇的外消旋混合物。结果表明，自组装的肽聚合物对不同手性分子表现出优异的对映选择性分离效率。通过改变其表面电荷、形态和肽的组成氨基酸序列，可以调整肽纳米结构的对映选择性分离效率。
