Conformational Regulation of Poly(amino acids): Challenges, Strategies, and Applications

Poly(amino acid)s (PAAs) constitute a class of synthetic polymers that closely mimic the structure of natural proteins. They exhibit excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability, and molecular tailorability. Importantly, PAAs can form highly ordered conformations, such as α-helix and β-sheet. Effectively regulating the conformations of PAAs, particularly by designing smart materials that can undergo conformational transitions in response to environmental stimuli, has emerged as a crucial strategy for developing biomimetic functional materials. These materials hold significant potential for applications in the biomedical field and have garnered considerable attention from researchers, leading to numerous innovative findings. While most prior studies have focused on ordered-disordered conformational transitions, recent years have seen substantial progress in ordered–ordered transitions. This perspective systematically discusses recent advances in the conformational regulation of PAAs, encompassing ordered–disordered, ordered–ordered, and other conformational transitions. It emphasizes the challenges encountered, the strategies employed for conformational regulation, and their impact on material properties and applications. Additionally, this paper outlines potential future research directions in this burgeoning field.