The present project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the crystallisation of peptides and enable the development of strategies for crystallisation control on more representatives. Specific objectives:
1-Design of nucleating agents based on short amphiphilic peptides that self-assembly in ordered nano-complexes.
2-Investigate the influence of several approaches (i.e., solvent, nucleating agents, decoupling of nucleation and growth stages and complexes with inorganic salts) on the crystallisation behaviour of three different peptides (different types of amino acids, pKa, length etc.). For this purpose, solubility assays will be conducted for different solvents to obtain the solubility curves.
3-Implement PAT tools (i.e., optical microscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy) to monitor the prenucleation solution (i.e., aggregation formation), nucleation kinetics (i.e., induction time) and crystals’ properties (size, shape).
4-Optimise the experimental conditions to obtain crystals with uniform properties (e.g., crystal structure).
Leave a Reply