Alternating Copolymers Based on Amino Acids and Peptides

Abstract

Controlling the monomer sequence along the polymer chain leads to the development of a special class of synthetic copolymers, and they are known as alternating copolymers when the two comonomers are placed in a regular exchanging fashion. The monomer sequence control plays an important role to regulate the different bulk properties such as conductivity, rigidity, biodegradability, as well as mimic the properties of the sequence defined biopolymers like DNA, RNA, enzymes, and proteins. Very recently, different synthetic strategies have been explored to mimic the monomer sequences in synthetic polymeric materials. An enormous combination of several desired functionalities has been attached with the electron donor styrene, stilbene or electron acceptor maleic anhydride or N-substituted maleimide moieties to produce strictly alternating backbone and their properties have been extensively investigated. Nowadays, functionalities like amino acids and peptides, essential and fundamental components of protein biopolymers and alive entities extending from bacteria to humans with a variety of enormities from nano to macro dimension, are widely used to design an extensive range of block or random copolymers with significant assets and applications, as they can play critical responsibility in both functional and structural levels. The multifaceted biological features of these moieties help to generate bioactive and biocompatible materials. However, the properties associated with their alternating architecture have not been broadly studied. By providing a quick look on different types of alternating copolymers, in this book chapter, we aim to focus on recent developments of amino acid and peptide-based alternating architectures, their interesting properties and applications as bioinspired nanomaterials, in inclusion chemistry, catalysis, sensing, tissue engineering, molecular electronics, molecular separation technology, and so on.