Biochemistry Graduate Seminar
Monday, September 28, 2009
Lecture at 4:30 p.m. in Burt Hall 114
Coffee at 4:15 p.m. in Chalmers 168
Sushanth Gudlur
Branched Amphipathic Peptides That Self-Assemble Into Nanovesicles
Lipid based vesicles have traditionally been used as a formulation strategy to deliver drugs but non-lipid based polymer vesicles that show better stability, specificity and tunability are gaining more importance lately. Peptide vesicles are one such example. We have designed and synthesized a set of relatively short, branched, amphipathic peptides that self-assemble into nano-vesicles. It is for the first time that a branched peptide is involved in vesicle formation and while all other peptides (in vesicle formation) so far mentioned in literature adopt a helical secondary structure, our peptides prefer a beta sheet orientation. When pairs of such lyophilized peptides with different lengths are co-dissolved in deionized distilled water they undergo supramolecular assembly to form nano-vesicles (100 nm in diameter). These peptide vesicles are capable of entrapping solutes and are taken up by Human Lens Epithelial cells. These are potential drug delivery vehicles for targeted delivery and we envision packaging nucleic acids into these peptide vesicles.
Methods include Circular Dichroism & Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Analytical Ultra Centrifugation, Confocal and Transmission Electron Microscopy.
References:
D. E. Discher and F. Ahmed, Polymersomes, Annu. Rev. Biomed. Eng. 8, 323-41 (2006).