title: Peptide nanovesicles formed by the self-assembly of branched amphiphilic peptides.
abstract: Peptide-based packaging systems show great potential as safer drug delivery systems. They overcome problems associated with lipid-based or viral delivery systems, vis-a-vis stability, specificity, inflammation, antigenicity, and tune-ability. Here, we describe a set of 15 & 23-residue branched, amphiphilic peptides that mimic phosphoglycerides in molecular architecture. These peptides undergo supramolecular self-assembly and form solvent-filled, bilayer delimited spheres with 50-200 nm diameters as confirmed by TEM, STEM and DLS. Whereas weak hydrophobic forces drive and sustain lipid bilayer assemblies, these all-peptide structures are stabilized potentially by both hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonds and remain intact at low micromolar concentrations and higher temperatures. A linear peptide lacking the branch point showed no self-assembly properties. We have observed that these peptide vesicles can trap fluorescent dye molecules within their interior and are taken up by N/N 1003A rabbit lens epithelial cells grown in culture. These assemblies are thus potential drug delivery systems that can overcome some of the key limitations of the current packaging systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sushanth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gudlur
authors.forename: Pinakin
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sukthankar
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: L Adriana
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Avila
authors.forename: Yasuaki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hiromasa
authors.forename: Jianhan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Takeo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Iwamoto
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Tomich
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D020404:Glycerophospholipids / Q000737:chemistry; D006860:Hydrogen Bonding; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D008051:Lipid Bilayers / Q000737:chemistry; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D011817:Rabbits
chemical_list: D020404:Glycerophospholipids; D008051:Lipid Bilayers; D010455:Peptides