Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Catalytic Materials and Technology, School of Petrochemical Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou, 213164, China.
Chem Commun (Camb). 2020 Nov 19;56(92):14385-14388. doi: 10.1039/d0cc06381a.
Allosteric effects are common in biology, but have not been fully explored in the control of supramolecular polymerization. Herein, ditopic UPy derivatives with acyclic crown ether-like spacers were designed and synthesized, which can undergo supramolecular polymerization through quadruple hydrogen bonding. Upon the addition of K+, drastic molecular conformational change to the U-shape is induced by metal-coordination, reconfiguring remote UPy sites towards the formation of discrete cyclic dimers. Interestingly, the supramolecular polymerization can be restored by simply removing K+ by water-extraction.
变构效应在生物学中很常见，但在超分子聚合的控制中尚未得到充分探索。在此，设计并合成了具有非循环冠醚状间隔基的双位点 UPy 衍生物，它们可以通过四重氢键进行超分子聚合。加入 K+后，金属配位诱导分子构象发生剧烈的 U 型变化，远程 UPy 位点重新配置形成离散的环状二聚体。有趣的是，通过简单的水萃取去除 K+即可恢复超分子聚合。
