Department of Chemistry, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, 33620, USA.
State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning, 116024, China.
Nat Commun. 2018 May 8;9(1):1815. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04247-z.
Nested concentric structures widely exist in nature and designed systems with circles, polygons, polyhedra, and spheres sharing the same center or axis. It still remains challenging to construct discrete nested architecture at (supra)molecular level. Herein, three generations (G2-G4) of giant nested supramolecules, or Kandinsky circles, have been designed and assembled with molecular weight 17,964, 27,713 and 38,352 Da, respectively. In the ligand preparation, consecutive condensation between precursors with primary amines and pyrylium salts is applied to modularize the synthesis. These discrete nested supramolecules are prone to assemble into tubular nanostructures through hierarchical self-assembly. Furthermore, nested supramolecules display high antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive pathogen methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and negligible toxicity to eukaryotic cells, while the corresponding ligands do not show potent antimicrobial activity.
嵌套同心结构广泛存在于自然界和设计系统中，其中圆形、多边形、多面体和球体共享相同的中心或轴。在（超）分子水平上构建离散的嵌套结构仍然具有挑战性。本文设计并组装了三代（G2-G4）巨型嵌套超分子，分子量分别为 17964、27713 和 38352 Da。在配体制备中，通过连续缩合具有伯胺和吡喃盐的前体来实现合成的模块化。这些离散的嵌套超分子易于通过分级自组装组装成管状纳米结构。此外，嵌套超分子对革兰氏阳性病原体耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌（MRSA）表现出高抗菌活性，对真核细胞的毒性可忽略不计，而相应的配体则没有表现出很强的抗菌活性。
