近日，美国特拉华大学Darrin J. Pochan团队研究了用于pH响应组装成液晶或晶格的片状肽颗粒。2026年2月5日，《科学》杂志发表了这一成果。

在保持极端pH条件下稳定性的同时，对蛋白质或胶体纳米粒子自组装成目标纳米结构进行可编程控制，仍是一个重大挑战。

研究组设计了卷曲螺旋束状肽纳米粒子，该粒子能够根据其表面电荷斑块排布，在异常宽广的pH范围（1、7和14）内形成有序的层级结构材料。在pH 1和pH 14条件下，低浓度（约0.5%至4%重量百分比）时观察到向列液晶相形成；而在pH 1条件下提高浓度则产生六方柱状相。

在中性pH条件下，相同的斑块纳米粒子通过静电络合作用组装成有序晶格。分子动力学模拟揭示了所有相态背后共有的粒子首尾堆叠机制。相比之下，氨基酸组成相同但缺乏设计电荷斑块的卷曲螺旋结构未显示任何有序组装，这证明了具有类蛋白质空间排布特异性的可编程静电相互作用的重要性。

附：英文原文

Title: Patchy peptide particles for pH-responsive assembly into liquid crystals or lattices

Author: Yao Tang, Tianren Zhang, Dai-Bei Yang, Jacob Schwartz, Christopher J. Kloxin, Jeffery G. Saven, Darrin J. Pochan

Issue&Volume: 2026-02-05

Abstract: Programmable control of protein or colloidal nanoparticle self-assembly into targeted nanostructures, while maintaining stability across extreme pH conditions, remains a major challenge. We designed coiled-coil bundlemer peptide nanoparticles that form ordered, hierarchical materials across an unusually broad pH range (1, 7, and 14) dependent on patchy surface charge display. Nematic liquid crystal formation was observed at low concentration (~0.5 to 4 weight %) at pH 1 and pH 14, whereas higher concentration at pH 1 yielded hexagonal columnar phases. At neutral pH, the same patchy nanoparticles assembled into ordered lattices through electrostatic complexation. Molecular dynamics simulations revealed end-to-end particle stacking underlying all phases. Coiled coils with identical amino acid composition but lacking designed charge patches displayed no ordered assembly, demonstrating the importance of programmable electrostatic interactions with protein-like specificity of spatial display.

DOI: adz6812

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz6812