Recent advances in the solution self‐assembly of polypeptides
Chunhua Cai, Jiaping Lin
Abstract
Abstract Polypeptides derived from amino acids bridge the synthetic polymers and proteins, and they have attracted continuous attention on their properties and functionalities. In the past decades, the self‐assembly behavior of polypeptides has been widely studied, and diversities of assembly nanostructures have been observed. In this perspective, we focus on the recent advances in the solution self‐assembly of polypeptides from two aspects. One is new type driving forces for the polypeptide self‐assembly, including liquid crystallization of polypeptides and conformation variation of helical polypeptides. Another is novel preparation methods for the polypeptide self‐assembly, including supramolecular polymerization, substrate‐mediated self‐assembly, and polymerization‐induced self‐assembly (PISA). In the end, we give a conclusion and outlook for the trends in the polypeptide solution self‐assembly.