Biomacromolecules, Vol.19, No.10, 4068-4074, 2018
Ionic Polypeptide Polymers with Unusual beta-Sheet Stability
Incorporating charged amino acid side chains in polypeptide polymer backbones to improve solubility usually leads to reduced secondary structuring. Here we show that highly water soluble (>15 mg.mL(-1)) beta-sheets can be obtained via nucleotide monophosphate grafting onto simple poly(gamma-propargyl-L-glutamate) backbone. This synthetic methodology has been applied to the synthesis of thymidine-based nucleopolypeptides presenting stable beta-sheet conformation in aqueous solutions with pH values comprised between 4 and 8. These polymeric analogues of nucleoproteins exhibited selective interaction with simple DNA sequences displaying adenine.