Fig. 4

Spatial aspects of carbohydrate presentation govern nanofiber lateral association and alignment. a Nanofibers of GQ11 and NQ11 co-assembled at different molar ratios transitioned from a tendency to non-specifically aggregate toward alignment with increasing GQ11 mole fraction. b GQ11G nanofibers were dispersed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and aligned in the presence of Ficoll. GQ11 nanofibers with c a short, 2 amino acid linker (2aaGQ11) tended to aggregate in PBS and did not align in the presence of Ficoll, whereas GQ11 nanofibers with d a longer, 8 amino acid linker (8aaGQ11) were dispersed in PBS and aligned in the presence of Ficoll, similar to GQ11 having a 4 amino acid linker. Scale bar = 100 nm in a–d