CUR - The Council on Undergraduate Research

Impact of C-terminal Chemistry on Self-assembled Morphology of Guanosine Containing Nucleopeptides

Sarah O'Neill, Katherine Bacchi, and Dr. Jillian Smith-Carpenter, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Fairfield University, 1073 N. Benson Rd, Fairfield, CT 06824

DNAzymes are sequences of DNA that possess unique catalytic abilities. As the vast majority of DNAzymes contain guanosine-based G-quadruplex secondary structures, there has been recent interest in designing supramolecular structures that contain G-quadruplexes and would also display catalytic functionality. In an effort to design such a G-quadruplex containing supramolecular structure, we have chemically modified the N-terminus of a short self-assembling peptide with guanosine. Two different peptide scaffolds were synthesized, only differing in the C-terminus functional group, and were subsequently self-assembled. Spectroscopy, microscopy, and diffraction data suggest that the C-terminus plays an essential role in controlling the final morphology, with the nucleopeptide having the capability to assemble into either a ribbon or quadruplex complex. These morphologically different nucleopeptides were structurally and catalytically characterized. Our findings structurally characterize these self-assembling nucleopeptides, as well as contribute to further development of future application and study of these supramolecular guanosine based nucleopeptides.

Additional Abstract Information