Protected Peptide Nanoparticles: Experiments and Brownian Dynamics Simulations of the Energetics of Assembly

Soluble peptides, susceptible to degradation and clearance in therapeutic applications, have been formulated into protected nanoparticles for the first time through the process of kinetically controlled, block copolymer directed rapid precipitation using Flash NanoPrecipitation. Complementary Brownian dynamics simulations qualitatively model the nanoparticle formation process. The simulations corroborate the hypothesis that the size of nanoparticles decreases with increasing supersaturation. Additionally, the influence of the polymer-peptide interaction energy on the efficiency of nanoparticle protection by polymer surface coverage is elucidated in both experiments and simulations.