Controlled CO-releasing behavior of self-assembled short peptide nanostructures

Abstract

Carbon monoxide releasing molecules (CORMs) have become very popular mainly for their therapeutic applications in mammalian physiology. Meanwhile, short peptides have become attractive in the biomedical applications due to their easy synthesis process with simple molecular structure along with desired functionality, which can be tuned depending on the consisting amino acids. Herein, we have developed CORM-attached self-assembling short peptides with varying hydrophilic (lysine) and hydrophobic (tryptophan) segments to understand the deep insight into the effect of their self-assembling behavior in CO-releasing properties. These peptides are subjected to take TEM, and cryo-EM images to observe the effect of hydrophilicity, and hydrophobicity in molecular packing, hence, in CO releasing properties. This work could enlighten the profound perception for the design of the CORM-peptide conjugates with customized bioactivity toward targeted organelle in the future.