In the cases of CTPR8Y 16 -C 60 and CTPR8-C 60 where pristine fullerene was used, the thin sheets were not free-floating, but instead clumped into large clusters, with various independent and very strong diffraction patterns in different parts of the plaques (Fig. ). This behaviour is also explained by the proposed fullerene binding mode: when bound on the surface of the protein sheets, C 60 A orient themselves to expose the hydrophilic tris-acid appendages to the solvent, thus contributing to the solubility of the superstructures, whereas pristine C 60 fullerenes introduce hydrophobic patches of carbon, causing the sheets to coalesce. The diffraction patterns of the C 60 assemblies showed on average smaller spacing (0.82-0.77 nm) than those of C 60 A (vide supra), which could be an indication that greater spacing is required to accommodate the pyrrolidine-tris acid groups (Fig. ).