The role of sidechains in the chirality of double helical system in synthetic peptides

The construction of chiral supramolecular systems with desirable handedness is of great importance in material science, chemistry and biology since chiral nanostructures exhibit fascinating photophysical properties and unique biological effect. This study opens a route to develop chiral nanostructures with desirable handedness via co-assembly of simple molecular building blocks and provides a straightforward insight into the chirality control of nanostructures in supramolecular systems. With the design of polymers with well-defined secondary and tertiary structures as the ultimate goal, we have taken up the task of identifying and synthetizing new oligomers of modest length that in solution display specific conformational preferences. References [1] E. Fenude et al. Biopolymers, 73 (2004) 239-241 [2] G.P. Lorenzi et al. Biopolymers 28 (1989) 204-214