Ligand-Receptor Interaction Modulates the Energy Landscape of Enzyme-Instructed Self-Assembly of Small Molecules

The concurrence of enzymatic reaction and ligand receptor interactions is common for proteins, but rare for small molecules and has yet to be explored. Here we show that ligand receptor interaction modulates the morphology of molecular assemblies formed by enzyme-instructed assembly of small molecules. While the absence of ligand receptor interaction allows enzymatic dephosphorylation of a precursor to generate the hydrogelator that self-assembles to form long nanofibers, the presence of the ligand receptor interaction biases the pathway to form precipitous aggregates containing short nanofibers. While the hydrogelators self-assemble to form nanofibers or nanoribbons that are unable to bind with the ligand (i.e., vancomycin), the addition of surfactant breaks up the assemblies to restore the ligand receptor interaction. In addition, an excess amount of the ligands can disrupt the nanofibers and result in the precipitates. As the first example of the use of ligand receptor interaction to modulate the kinetics of enzymatic self-assembly, this work not only provides a solution to evaluate the interaction between aggregates and target molecules but also offers new insight for understanding the emergent behavior of sophisticated molecular systems having multiple and parallel processes.