De novo design of Self-assembly Hydrogels based on Fmoc-diphenylalanine Providing with Drug Release

The short peptides with self-assembled nanostructures are widely applied in the areas of drug delivery system and biomaterials. In this article, we create a new peptide-based hydrogelator (Fmoc-FFRRVR) based on N-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl-diphenylalanine (Fmoc-FF) through an approach to improving its hydrophilicity. Compared to Fmoc-FF, Fmoc-FFRRVR prefer to form hydrogel in mild conditions, and the gelation time is only 2 s. Fmoc-FFRRVR self-assembles into organized arrays of β-sheets in nanofibers via π-stacking of Fmoc-FF, which are supported by circular dichroism and fluorescence emission spectroscopy. Rheology results confirm that the hydrogel of Fmoc-FFRRVR is elastic, reversible and injectable. The newly discovered hydrogel not only remains some excellent performances of Fmoc-FF, but also can be used as a drug carrier for biomedical applications.