Tuneable pH-regulated supramolecular copolymerisation by mixing mismatched dendritic peptide comonomers

Abstract

Charged phenylalanine-rich dendritic peptides form highly stable and pH-switchable rod-like supramolecular copolymers, when co-assembled with a matching oppositely charged dendritic comonomer. Here, we demonstrate that by mismatching a strong with a weak β-sheet encoded comonomer, both the stability and the pH-triggered disassembly of the copolymers shifts drastically from pH 4.2 to biologically relevant pH 5.8.