Supercoiling as a Physical Process Providing Formation of Macroscopic Anisometric Supramolecular Structures

摘要

Solutions of chiral and achiral trifluoroacetyl amino alcohols (TFAAA) contain anisometric structures with a diameter < 1 nm and length similar to 7 nm. In homochiral solutions and xerogels, chiral TFAAA form strings with a diameter of similar to 30-100 nm and length more than similar to 1 mu, and achiral TFAAA condensate into isometric granule with diameter of similar to 1 mu. We conclude that molecular chirality determines helicity of strings within tens of nanometers or more. Stabilization of supramolecular structure of strings is presumably achieved via their supercoiling.