Self-assembled dehydropeptide nano carriers for delivery of ornidazole and curcumin

In the recent studies, it has been demonstrated that incorporation of unnatural amino acid, alpha,beta-dehydrophenylalanine, in small peptides results in stable self-assembled nanostructures with different sizes and shapes. Here, we have replaced the natural amino acid, phenylalanine, from our earlier reported work on self-assembled peptide, Boc-Pro-Phe-Gly-OMe, with a constrained dehydro amino acid, alpha,beta-dehydrophenylalanine, to study its influence on self-assembled nanostructures. Dehydrotripeptide, Boc-Pro-Delta Phe-Gly-OMe, self-assembled into nanostructures in aqueous solutions and formed hydrophobic matrix with improved encapsulation efficiency of hydrophobic molecules. The hydrodynamic size of peptide nanostructures from DLS study was found to be similar to 257 nm. The morphology and size of the loaded nanoparticles were also determined by TEM. To improve aqueous dispersibility the projected nanostructures for efficient use in drug delivery, self-assembled dehydropeptide nano carriers were further stabilized with Vitamin-E-TPGS. The final complex drug nanoparticles provided controlled drug release. These findings demonstrated that incorporation of constrained dehydro amino acids in peptides have the potential to construct stable nanostructures for development of nano materials with controlled drug release. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.