Enhanced cell adhesion and mature intracellular structure promoted by squaramide-based RGD mimics on bioinert surfaces.

Highly selective molecular binding and the subsequent dynamic protein assemblies control the adhesion of mammalian cells. Molecules that inhibit cell adhesion have the therapeutic potential for a wide range of diseases. Here, we report an efficient synthesis (2-4 steps) of a class of squaramide molecules that mimics the natural tripeptide ligand Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) that mediates mammalian cell adhesion through binding with membrane protein integrin. In solution, this class of squaramides exhibits a higher potency at inhibiting mammalian cell adhesion than RGD tripeptides. When immobilized on a bio-inert background formed by self-assembled monolayers of alkanethiols on gold films, squaramide ligands mediate vastly different intracellular structures than RGD ligands. Immunostaining revealed that the focal adhesions are smaller, but with a larger quantity, for cells adhered on squaramides than that on RGD ligands. Furthermore, the actin filaments are also more fibrous and well distributed for cell adhesion mediated by squaramide than that by RGD ligands. Quantification reveal that squaramide ligands mediate about 1.5 times more total focal adhesion (measured by the summation of the area of all focal adhesions) than that by natural RGD ligands. This result suggests that cell adhesion inhibitors, while blocking the attachment of cells to surfaces, may induce more focal adhesion proteins. Finally, this work demonstrates that immobilizing new ligands on bioinert surfaces provide a powerful tool to study mammalian cell adhesion.

Noncovalent polymerization and assembly in water promoted by thermodynamic incompatibility.

This work studies the phase separations between polymers and a small molecule in a common aqueous solution that do not have well-defined hydrophobic-hydrophilic separation. In addition to poly(acrylamide) (PAAm) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) also promotes liquid crystal (LC) droplet formation by disodium cromoglycate (5'DSCG) solvated in water. In the presence of these polymers, the concentration of 5'DSCG needed for forming LC droplets is substantially lower than that needed for forming an LC phase by 5'DSCG alone. To define the concentration ranges that 5'DSCG molecules form liquid crystals (either as droplets or as an isotropic-LC mixture), we constructed ternary phase diagrams for 5'DSCG, water, and a polymer - PVA, PVP, or PAAm. We discovered that PAAm with high molecular weight promotes LC droplet formation by 5'DSCG more effectively than PAAm with low molecular weight. At the same weight percentage, long-chain PAAm can cause 5'DSCG to form LC droplets in water, whereas short-chain PAAm does not. Poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP), which has functional groups that are more dissimilar to 5'DSCG than PVA and PAAm, promotes LC droplet formation by 5'DSCG more effectively than either of the other two polymers. Additionally, small angle neutron scattering data revealed that the assembly structure of 5'DSCG promoted by the presence of PVA is similar to the thread structure formed by 5'DSCG alone. Together, these results reveal how noncovalent polymerization can be promoted by mixing thermodynamically incompatible molecules and elucidate the basic knowledge of nonamphiphilic colloidal science.

Induced folding by chiral nonplanar aromatics.

We report a structural motif based on a C(3)-symmetric bowl-shaped core, on which three substituted amino acids on the periphery adopt either a folded or a spread-out conformation. This class of chiral folded structures is achieved by controlling the reactivity of the stereogenic protons on the nonplanar aromatic rings of trioxatricornan to afford predominantly C(3)-symmetric isomers. Bromination of trioxatricornan afforded a C(1)-symmetric and a C(3)-symmetric trisubstituted isomer, with the former being the major product as a statistical consequence during the reaction cascade. To obtain the C(3) symmetric isomer as the major product, C-H activation by means of ortho-lithiation with the bulky tert-butyl lithium and tetramethylethylenediamine was followed by a nucleophilic substitution that successfully reversed the statistically controlled regioselectivity. Further derivatization of the trioxatricornan with amino acids or menthol afforded diastereomers that were resolved by preparative chromatography. The absolute configurations of the diastereomers were determined by vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) in combination with density functional theory (DFT) and electronic circular dichroism (ECD). The folding structure of cysteine-derivatized trioxatricornan diastereomers was determined by two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy and molecular dynamics calculation, which revealed that one diastereomer has the amino acids folded toward the cavity of trioxatricornan and the other has a "spread-out" structure.

Selective immobilization of peptides exclusively via N-terminus cysteines by water-driven reactions on surfaces.

Immobilizing peptides or proteins on bioinert surfaces enables the elucidation of ligand-receptor interaction in complex biological systems. Here, we report a highly chemoselective surface reaction that immobilizes peptides exclusively via N-terminus cysteine residue in a peptide. At pH 5.5, only N-terminus cysteines of peptides couple covalently with phenoxy amino squarate moieties presented on self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkanethiols on gold films. The selectivity of this surface reaction can tolerate the presence of internal cysteines in close proximity to basic residues such as histidines. We demonstrated this selective surface reaction by mammalian cell adhesion and by SAMDI mass spectroscopy of the SAMs.

Chiral molecules with polyhedral T, O, or I symmetry: theoretical solution to a difficult problem in stereochemistry.

Ever since point groups of symmetry have been used to describe molecules after Van't Hoff and Le Bel proposed tetrahedral structures for carbon atoms in 1874, it remains difficult to design chiral molecules with polyhedral symmetry T, O, or I. Past theoretical and experimental studies have mainly accomplished molecular structures that have the conformations for satisfying the T symmetry. In this work, we present a general theoretical approach to construct rigid molecular structures that have permanently the symmetry of T, O, and I. This approach involves desymmetrization of the vertices or the edges of Platonic solid-shaped molecules with dissymmetric moieties. Using density functional theory (DFT) and assisted model building and energy refinement (AMBER) computational methods, the structure, the rigidity, and the symmetry of the molecule are confirmed by assessing the lowest energy conformation of the molecule, which is initially presented in a planar graph. This method successfully builds molecular structures that have the symmetry of T, O, and I. Interestingly, desymmetrization of the edges has a more stringent requirement of rigidity than desymmetrization of the vertices for affording the T, O, or I symmetry.