Fabrication of short peptide cages by interfacial self-assembly on CaCO3 templates

Abstract Short peptide cages have great potential applications in drug encapsulation and release because of excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability and multi-functionality originated from their abundant sequences. However, constructing short peptide cages are still a challenge, which is caused by the rapid kinetic and unlimited self-assembly behavior of short peptide in a macroscopical media. Herein, we developed smart procedures to produce short peptide cages, in which porous CaCO 3 microparticles were used as enzyme (thermolysin) carriers and applied as catalyzers to promote the condensation reaction of Fmoc-Y and L-NH 2 in confined space of water/n-hexane emulsion which limited the self-assembly behavior of Fmoc-YL-NH 2 and allowed the peptide to just self-assemble on CaCO 3 surface. Intact short peptide cages would be produced after the removing the templates.