Minimalistic Artificial Catalysts with Esterase-Like Activity from Multivalent Nanofibers Formed by the Self-Assembly of Dipeptides.

Imitating and incorporating the multiple key structural features observed in natural enzymes into a minimalistic molecule to develop an artificial catalyst with outstanding catalytic efficiency is an attractive topic for chemists. Herein, we designed and synthesized one class of minimalistic dipeptide molecules containing a terminal -SH group and a terminal His-Phe dipeptide head linked by a hydrophobic alkyl chain with different lengths, marked as HS-C -His-Phe ( = 4, 7, 11, 15, and 17; + 1 represents the carbon atom number of the alkyl chain). The His (-imidazole), Phe (-CO ) moieties, the terminal -SH group, and a long hydrophobic alkyl chain were found to have important contributions to achieve high binding ability leading to outstanding absolute catalytic efficiency ( / ) toward the hydrolysis reactions of carboxylic ester substrates.