Fabrication of short peptide cages by interfacial self-assembly on CaCO3 templates

Short peptide cages have great potential applications in drug encapsulation and release because of excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability and multi-functionality originated from their abundant sequences. However, constructing short peptide cages are still a challenge, which is caused by the rapid kinetic and unlimited self-assembly behavior of short peptide in a macroscopical media. Herein, we developed smart procedures to produce short peptide cages, in which porous CaCO3 microparticles were used as enzyme (thermolysin) carriers and applied as catalyzers to promote the condensation reaction of Fmoc-Y and L-NH2 in confined space of water/n-hexane emulsion which limited the self-assembly behavior of Fmoc-YL-NH2 and allowed the peptide to just self-assemble on CaCO3 surface. Intact short peptide cages would be produced after the removing the templates.