Formation of S- and Z-twist supramolecular micro-ropes by peptide stereoisomers
- Hui Yuan
- Zhongyuan Yang
- Chengqian Yuan
- Sudha Shankar
- Aviad Levin
- Tiancheng Lv
- Zihan Wang
- Wei Sun
- Jadon Sitton
- Pierre-André Cazade
- Yoav Dan
- Yiming Tang
- Lihi Adler-Abramovich
- Yi Cao
- Sigal Rencus-Lazar
- Damien Thompson
- Dmitry Kurouski
- Tuomas P. J. Knowles
- Linda J. W. Shimon
- Guanghong Wei
- Bin Xue
- Rusen Yang
- Ehud Gazit
2026-03-26
The intertwined strand arrangement in ropes, from micro- to macro-scale, results in tensile moduli significantly higher than those of single strands. Micro-scale ropes are found in biological systems, most commonly in mechanically-rigid collagen tri-strand arrangements. While human-made macro-ropes possess either left-handed (S) or right-handed (Z) twist, collagen exclusively adopts Z-twist architectures. Despite its natural abundance, the reconstruction and control of these supramolecular ropes in biomimetic systems using minimalist building units remains a fundamental challenge. Here, we demonstrate that cyclo-tryptophan-proline dipeptide stereoisomers self-assemble into complex crystalline supramolecular triple-helical structures. These unique architectures display tunable S- or Z-micro-rope-like twists governed by the configuration of tryptophan residues, as confirmed by co-assembly experiments and molecular dynamics simulations. Tensile testing revealed that these supramolecular micro-ropes exhibit significant moduli. These findings provide a potential platform for designing biomimetic functional helical materials with tunable supramolecular chirality and mechanical strength using minimalist building blocks.