Abstract
In the field of peptide assemblies, there have been a lot of attempts to form and explore the various assemblies, composed of not only natural peptides but also peptide derivatives. While the earlier efforts focused on the morphologies of the assemblies; recently, the attentions to the novel functions derived from the assemblies and the processes of assembling has increased significantly, which leads to the exploration of new applications. For my thesis work, I designed and synthesized small molecules that formed supramolecular assemblies. There are five chapters in the dissertation. Chapter 1 gives a comprehensive review on supramolecular peptide assemblies of peptides or peptide derivatives, which have emerged as one of most active research areas in supramolecular chemistry and soft matter. Chapter 2 describes a supramolecular approach for controlling cellular processes and provides insights for mimicking chaperones and controlling protein−protein interactions. Chapter 3 demonstrates a new type of tryptophan-rich short peptides, which act as hydrogelators, form supramolecular assemblies via enzymatic dephosphorylation, and exhibit cell compatibility. Chapter 4 reports that the use of an enzymatic reaction to cleave the branch off branched peptides for inducing the morphological transition of the assemblies of the peptides. Chapter 5 focuses on conclusive summary on supramolecular peptide assemblies and their applications as well as their future outlooks.