Nature Communications· 2026Q1
CO2 responsive nanoscopic and macroscopic materials directed by peptides
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- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Researchers designed sequence-specific peptides that respond to carbon dioxide (CO2), enabling control over nanoparticle aggregation and cm-scale hydrogel properties. This gas-mediated control strategy is scalable across length scales.
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Key points
- Introduced CO2 as a dynamic stimulus for controlling nanoscale and macroscale material behavior using peptide design.
- Peptide-functionalized nanoparticles show tunable aggregation responses to CO2 flow rates, governed by peptide structure.
- Aggregation rate scales with CO2 flow rate, not cumulative dose, as shown by quantitative modeling.
- Responsive hydrogels (cm-scale) exhibit reversible and colorimetric responses to CO2.
- Demonstrated CO2 lithography for spatial patterning of hydrogels.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Stimuli such as pH, light, and electromagnetic fields have enabled precise control over nanoscale interactions, yet gases remain relatively unexplored as regulators of material behavior despite their central roles in biology, energy, and climate. Here, we introduce carbon dioxide as a dynamic and reversible stimulus for controlling nanoscale and macroscale matter using sequence-specific peptide design. Peptide-functionalized nanoparticles exhibit pronounced and tunable responses to CO 2 across orders of magnitude changes in gas flow rate, with sensitivity governed by site- and sequence-specific changes in peptide structure. The aggregation sequence-dependence is described by six design principles while quantitative modeling show that aggregation rate scales with flow rate rather than cumulative CO 2 dose. This gas-controlled response translates from colloidal nanoparticles to cm-scale biocompatible hydrogels that reversibly and colorimetrically respond to CO 2 . Leveraging this responsiveness, we further demonstrate spatial patterning of a hydrogel through a gas-permeable mask using CO 2 as a lithographic stimulus. Consequently, this work establishes gas-mediated control as a general and scalable strategy for programming responsive materials across length scales.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Nature Communications, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Biomaterials
BiomaterialsMaterials Science