Solvent-free liquid crystals and liquids based on genetically engineered supercharged polypeptides with high elasticity.

Liu, Kai; Pesce, Diego; Ma, Chao; Tuchband, Michael; Shuai, Min; Chen, Dong; Su, Juanjuan; Liu, Qing et al. · Adv Mater · 2015

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

A series of solvent-free elastin-like polypeptide liquid crystals and liquids are developed by electrostatic complexation of supercharged elastin-like polypeptides with surfactants. The smectic mesophases exhibit a high elasticity and the values can be easily tuned by varying the alkyl chain lengths of the surfactants or the lengths of the elastin-like polypeptides.

Medical subject headings