A hydrogen-bonded (H-bonded) amide macrocycle was found to serve as an effective component in the host–guest assembly for a supramolecular chirality transfer process. Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy studies showed that the near-planar macrocycle could produce a CD response when combined with three of the twelve L-α-amino acid esters (all cryptochiral molecules) tested as possible guests. The host–guest complexation between the macrocycle and cationic guests was explored using NMR, revealing the presence of a strong affinity involving the multi-point recognition of guests. This was further corroborated by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The present work proposes a new strategy for amplifying the CD signals of cryptochiral molecules by means of H-bonded macrocycle-based host–guest association, and is expected to be useful in designing supramolecular chiroptical sensing materials.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.