Journal article
Structural Classification and General Principles for the Design of Spherical Molecular Hosts
Angewandte Chemie (International ed.), Vol.38(8), pp.1018-1033
04/19/1999
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1521-3773(19990419)38:8<1018::AID-ANIE1018>3.0.CO;2-G
PMID: 25138490
Abstract
Complexes made by hosts that completely surround their guests provide a means to stabilize reactive and transient chemical intermediates, to transfer biologically active molecules to target cells, and to construct molecular scale devices. Whereas nature has utilized amino acids, in the form of polypeptide chains, to construct shell-like hosts of nanoscale dimensions (for example, viruses and ferritin) that exhibit certain functions (for example, packaging of DNA and Fe cores), chemists have a myriad of organic and inorganic building blocks at their disposal. These may be used to synthesize diverse families of shells as demonstrated by the emergence of container molecules, ions, and assemblies (for example, cryptands, carcerands, polyoxometallates, inorganic-organic cages, and molecular capsules). Synthetic containers of nanoscale dimensions remain rare, however, and with interests in chemical synthesis moving towards the fabrication of nanoscale molecular frameworks and the miniaturization of functional microstructures, it seems likely that the structures of biological shells will continue to inspire the design of synthetic analogues. It is clear that if chemists are to proceed with the endeavor of synthesizing shell-like hosts then a design strategy for the construction of such frameworks would be desirable, with a method that translates features related to the structures of biological shells to synthetic systems. Here, we demonstrate such an approach. In particular, we have structurally classified a variety of organic, inorganic, and biological host frameworks and show that their structures may be cataloged according to principles of solid geometry in which the five Platonic and 13 Archimedean solids may be used as models for spheroid design. In essence, the method relies on recognizing the relationship between the convex uniform polyhedra and container molecules where, in both cases, identical subunits and bonding arrangements make up each shell. This systematic approach has led us to identify containers that have yet to be synthesized or discovered and we propose such systems as targets for chemical synthesis.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Structural Classification and General Principles for the Design of Spherical Molecular Hosts
- Creators
- Leonard R MacGillivray - Department of Chemistry, University of Columbia-Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, 65211, USA, Fax: (+1) 573-884-9606Jerry L Atwood - Department of Chemistry, University of Columbia-Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, 65211, USA, Fax: (+1) 573-884-9606
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Angewandte Chemie (International ed.), Vol.38(8), pp.1018-1033
- Publisher
- WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH
- DOI
- 10.1002/(SICI)1521-3773(19990419)38:8<1018::AID-ANIE1018>3.0.CO;2-G
- PMID
- 25138490
- ISSN
- 1433-7851
- eISSN
- 1521-3773
- Number of pages
- 16
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 04/19/1999
- Academic Unit
- Pharmaceutical Sciences and Experimental Therapeutics; Chemistry
- Record Identifier
- 9984216672502771
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