Nucleopolypeptides with DNA-triggered α helix-to-β sheet transition

Abstract

Synthetic polypeptides are versatile polymers outstandingly relevant to prepare bioinspired materials. In this work, we present a new class of smart polypeptide polymers, called nucleopolypeptides, having lateral chains functionalized with thymidine nucleobases. Structural studies performed by circular dichroism have revealed that the secondary structure of the polymers was influenced by nucleotide interaction and DNA sequence variation affording a selective helix-to-beta sheet transition with oligo(AAAAA)₆.