Yes / Photoresponsive molecules that incorporate peptides capable of material-specific recognition provide a basis for biomolecule-mediated control of the nucleation, growth, organization, and activation of hybrid inorganic/organic nanostructures. These hybrid molecules interact with the inorganic surface through multiple noncovalent interactions which allow reconfiguration in response to optical stimuli. Here, we quantify the binding of azobenzene-peptide conjugates that exhibit optically triggered cis-trans isomerization on Ag surfaces and compare to their behavior on Au. These results demonstrate differences in binding and switching behavior between the Au and Ag surfaces. These molecules can also produce and stabilize Au and Ag nanoparticles in aqueous media where the biointerface can be reproducibly and reversibly switched by optically triggered azobenzene isomerization. Comparisons of switching rates and reversibility on the nanoparticles reveal differences that depend upon whether the azobenzene is attached at the peptide N- or C-terminus, its isomerization state, and the nanoparticle composition. Our integrated experimental and computational investigation shows that the number of ligand anchor sites strongly influences the nanoparticle size. As predicted by our molecular simulations, weaker contact between the hybrid biomolecules and the Ag surface, with fewer anchor residues compared with Au, gives rise to differences in switching kinetics on Ag versus Au. Our findings provide a pathway toward achieving new remotely actuatable nanomaterials for multiple applications from a single system, which remains difficult to achieve using conventional approaches. / Air Office of Scientific Research, grant number FA9550-12-1-0226.

As a promising pH-triggerable molecular switch, trans -2-aminocyclohexanol (TACH) has a variety of applications. By introducing two hydrocarbon tails, multiple TACH-based lipids (flipids) have been designed and studied that are able to perform a drastic conformational flip upon protonation, loosening the stacking of hydrocarbon tails in lipid bilayers. Liposomes constructed from such flipids (fliposomes) can be disrupted by this acid-triggered conformational flip to cause a rapid release of a cargo specifically in areas of increased acidity (such as inflammation or ischemic tissues, solid tumor, and endosome pathway). A library of flipids has been built based on structural modifications of both amino headgroups and hydrophobic tails. A series of fliposomes have been constructed and their colloidal stability, capacity and pH-dependent leakage were investigated. A good correlation between the conformational switch of flipids studied by 1 H-NMR and the fliposomes' leakage indicated that the former is a cause for the latter. The obtained results showed that all the properties of fliposomes can be manipulated by selection of the amino headgroups structure and basicity, and the length and shape of hydrophobic tails, by using mixtures of different flipids or fliposomes, and by changing the content of flipids while constructing fliposomes. As a result, we prepared the pH-triggerable fliposomes with extraordinary characteristics: high stability in storage combined with instant release of their cargo in response to a weakly acidic medium. Fliposomes encapsulating the anticancer drug methotrexate (MTX) were applied to HeLa cells and demonstrated much higher cytotoxicity than the free drug and negative controls, indicating that they could conduct more efficient cellular delivery of MTX. The MTX-loaded fliposomes inhibited tumor growth in B16F1-melanoma-bearing nude mice compared to the control group, suggesting the anticancer activity of MTX delivered by pH-triggerable fliposomes in vivo. The results of research demonstrated the potential of fliposomes to serve as a viable drug delivery system.

Trans-2-Aminocyclohexanol (TACH) is a promising model for pH-triggerable molecular switches with a variety of potential applications. In particular, such a switch, when incorporated into cationic liposomes, provides a novel design of the pH-sensitive helper lipids for gene delivery. Protonation of TACH molecules results in a strong intramolecular hydrogen bond between the amino and its neighboring hydroxyl groups, which triggers a conformational flip, and forces changes of the relative position of other substituents on the ring. In this work, a library of TACH-lipids has been designed and built based on structural modifications of both hydrophilic headgroups and hydrophobic tails, and their conformational behavior has been studied by 1 H NMR. NMR-titration has been done to quantitatively monitor the conformational switch for TACH derivatives. It was discovered that conformational behavior of TACH-lipids is independent from the length or shape of their hydrophobic tails. Therefore, a simplified model was suggested based on TACH with diethyl groups instead of hydrocarbon tails. Conformational study of these models has demonstrated that the position of equilibrium shift A [special characters omitted] BH + can be effectively changed by altering structure of NR 2 R 3 group. Furthermore, the pH-induced conformational flip occurs in a certain pH range that mostly depends on the basicity of group NR 2 R 3 , allowing a broad tuning of the pH-sensitivity of TACH-based conformational switches in a wide range of acidity. The hydrophilic OH group was also modified to influence the conformational equilibrium. External stimuli including addition of acid, change of solvent and of the solution ionic strength also showed impact on conformation equilibrium to different extents. To explore the potential to serve as pH-sensitive helper lipids in gene delivery, a variety of TACH-lipids were incorporated into lipoplexes together with the cationic lipid DOTAP to mediate DNA transfection in Bl6F1 and HeLa cancer cell lines. The lipoplex comprising TACH-lipid 3o (R 1 = C 19 H 37 ; R 2 R 3 = CF 3 CH 2 NH) exhibited one to two orders of magnitude better transfection efficiency than the one with the conventional helper lipid DOPE while only inducing slight higher cytotoxicity. Thus, the lipid can be suggested as a novel helper lipid for efficient gene transfection with low cytotoxicity.