A Self-Assembled M8L6 Cubic Cage that Selectively Encapsulates Large Aromatic Guests

摘要

Biological encapsulants such as ferritin, lumazine synthase, and viral capsids achieve their selective separation and sequestration of substrates by providing: 1) a guest microenvironment isolated from the surroundings, 2) favorable interactions complementing a size and shape match with the encapsulated guests, and 3) sufficient flexibility to allow guests to be incorporated and released. These biological hosts self-assemble from multiple copies of identical protein subunits, the symmetries and connection properties of which dictate the hollow polyhedral structures of the encapsulant. In order to create abiological molecular systems that are capable of expressing functions of similar complexity to biological systems and to explore new applications of synthetic hosts, there is a need to create synthetic capsules capable of tightly and selectively binding large substrates.