Covalent capture: a natural complement to self-assembly

The utility of peptide self-assembly can be extended by covalent capture of these supramolecular materials. Disulfide bond formation, native chemical ligation, olefin metathesis, radical capture and oxidative lysine cross-linking have been used recently to help stabilize and characterize a variety of self-assembled peptides. These include natural peptides, proteins and protein mimics such as a-helical coiled coils, amyloid-like P-sheet fibres, portions of p53, glutathione S-transferase and elastin as well as unnatural peptide constructs such as cyclic peptide nanotubes and cylindrical micelles of peptide amphiphiles.