Evaluation of Charge-Regulated Supramolecular Copolymerization to Tune the Time Scale for Oxidative Disassembly of β-Sheet Comonomers.

A multistimuli-responsive supramolecular copolymerization is reported. The copolymerization is driven by hydrogen bond encoded β-sheet-based charge co-assembly into 1D nanorods in water, using glutamic acid or lysine residues in either of the peptide comonomers. The incorporation of methionine as hydrophobic amino acid supports β-sheet formation, but oxidation of the thioether side-chain to a sulfoxide functional group destabilizes the β-sheet ordered domains and induces disassembly of the supramolecular polymers.