Understanding the Kinetic Pathways of Peptide-Block Copolymer Coacervation

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are found in many species throughout nature to fight pathogens such as bacteria or even by bacteria themselves to fight other bacteria. These molecules have been around for hundreds of millions of years and have largely been able to avoid bacterial resistance. Yet, they are surprisingly little used in treatments – mainly because they are rather unstable towards serum proteins and may be toxic to other cells. Here we will focus on nanoparticles obtained by peptide- polymer coacervates and study their formation kinetics under different mixing ratios, pH and ionic strengths . The system under investigation will be poly(acrylic acid)-poly(ethylene oxide) (PAA-PEO) and various antimicrobial peptides with different charges and length. By understanding the kinetic pathways and stability we aim to obtain better control of the processing conditions required for pharmaceutical applications.