Synthesis of Benzofuran Chains: Monomer to Tetramer

摘要

Foldamers are synthetic chain molecules or oligomers capable of folding into ordered arrays like secondary structures of proteins. The folding can be driven by various polar and non-polar forces including hydrogen bonds, dipole-dipole interactions, π-stacking, and solvophobic interactions. Over the past decade, a variety of foldamers have been described and most of them can be classified into two categories. One is pep-tidomimetic foldamers derived from unnatural amino acids such as β-amino acids and 2-aminocycloalkanecarboxylic acids. These foldamers provide us an opportunity to gain insight into fundamental principles of the folding of biomacromolecules. Another is aryl strand foldamers prepared from rigid aromatic building blocks, and some of them fold into a helical structure with an internal cavity, thus capable of accommodating a complementary guest.