Introduction of a tailor made anion receptor into the side chain of small peptides allows fine-tuning the thermodynamic signature of peptide–DNA binding†
Abstract
The binding between peptides and DNA is often driven by entropic forces. We demonstrate herein a new approach to shift the thermodynamic profile of peptide/DNA binding from entropy to enthalpy driven. This eventually leads to higher compacted DNA aggregates which are important for gene transfection.