title: Quantification of the effects of chain length and concentration on the thermal behavior of elastin-like polypeptides.
abstract: At a specific temperature, elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) undergo a sharp solubility transition that can be exploited in a variety of applications in biotechnology and medicine. The temperature of the transition varies with ELP sequence, molecular weight, and concentration. We present a single equation of three parameters that quantitatively predicts the transition temperature as a function of ELP length and concentration for an ELP of a fixed composition. This model should be useful both for the design of new ELP sequences that exhibit a desired transition temperature and for the selection of variables to trigger the phase transition of an ELP for a given application.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Box 90281, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708-0281, USA.
authors.forename: Dan E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Ashutosh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chilkoti
mesh_terms: D004549:Elastin / Q000737:chemistry*; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D012995:Solubility; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides; D004549:Elastin