Salicylaldimine-functionalized l-phenylalanine-based pseudopeptides: zinc-instructed conformational tuning of self-assembled nanostructures†

Pseudopeptidic bioinspired materials are emerging soft matter for recognizing biologically relevant species, supramolecular self-assembled nanostructures, and advanced nanoscience applications. Therefore, we have developed a novel C₂-symmetric pseudopeptide using L-phenylalanine amino acid and salicylaldehyde with varying aliphatic spacers. Pseudopeptides show a high selectivity toward Zn(II) ion with significant fluorescence enhancement. The self-assembly exhibits a random spherical nanostructure morphology transformed into a densely packed spherical microstructure morphology after incubating Zn(II) ions through conformational tuning. This zinc-guided rearrangement of self-assembly and interaction with BSA proteins holds significant potential for applications in nanobioscience.