Abstract
Induced-fit or conformational selection is of profound significance in biological regulation. Biological receptors alter their conformation to respond to the shape and electrostatic surfaces of guest molecules. Here we report a water-soluble artificial molecular host that can sensitively respond to the size, shape, and charged state of guest molecules. The molecular host, i.e. nanocube, is an assembled structure consisting of six gear-shaped amphiphiles (GSAs). This nanocube can expand or contract its size upon the encapsulation of neutral and anionic guest molecules with a volume ranging from 74 to 535 Å3 by induced-fit. The responding property of this nanocube, reminiscent of a feature of biological molecules, arises from the fact that the GSAs in the nanocubes are connected to each other only through the hydrophobic effect and very weak intermolecular interactions such as van der Waals and cation-π interactions.
Highlights
Induced-fit or conformational selection is of profound significance in biological regulation
As often seen in biological receptors, conformational flexibility that enables molecular hosts to respond to the shape and electrostatic surface of guest molecules is a general requirement for induced-fit binding
One of the methyl groups in 1 (MeP in Fig. 1b) is placed around the north or the south pole, while the others (MeE in Fig. 1b) are placed near the equator. 1H NMR signals of these p-tolyl methyl groups are observed in the upfield region due to the shielding effect caused by the neighboring aromatic rings in the nanocube[24], so the chemical shift of the p-tolyl methyl signals is a good indicator to assess the molecular meshing between the gear-shaped amphiphiles (GSAs) in the nanocube
Summary
Induced-fit or conformational selection is of profound significance in biological regulation. The molecular host, i.e. nanocube, is an assembled structure consisting of six gear-shaped amphiphiles (GSAs) This nanocube can expand or contract its size upon the encapsulation of neutral and anionic guest molecules with a volume ranging from 74 to 535 Å3 by induced-fit. As often seen in biological receptors, conformational flexibility that enables molecular hosts to respond to the shape and electrostatic surface of guest molecules is a general requirement for induced-fit binding. We reported a cube-shaped molecular assembly, i.e., nanocube, from six molecules of gear-shaped amphiphiles (GSAs) such as 1Cl2 (Fig. 1a) in water[24,25,26] The structure of this nanocube is formed and maintained by only meshing between the GSAs, for which very weak, non-directional van der Waals (vdW) and cation-π interactions are responsible. The response of the nanocube to guest molecules depends on the size and shape of the guests and on their charged state
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