Functional supramolecular systems: design and applications

Abstract

The interest in functional supramolecular systems for the design of innovative materials and technologies, able to fundamentally change the world, is growing at a high pace. The huge array of publications that appeared in recent years in the global literature calls for systematization of the structural trends inherent in the formation of these systems revealed at different molecular platforms and practically useful properties they exhibit. The attention is concentrated on the topics related to functional supramolecular systems that are actively explored in institutes and universities of Russia in the last 10–15 years, such as the chemistry of host–guest complexes, crystal engineering, self-assembly and self-organization in solutions and at interfaces, biomimetics and molecular machines and devices. The bibliography includes 1714 references.

PAMAM-calix-dendrimers: Synthesis and Thiacalixarene Conformation Effect on DNA Binding

“…Relatively rigid spatial fixation of binding groups provides high selectivity of guest molecule binding [22][23][24]. It should be noted that the thiacalixarene scaffold exerts a multivalent binding effect [25,26] by fixing binding sites in space, which is very important in the case of DNA [27]. The use of thiacalix [4]arene in cone, partial cone, and 1,3-alternate conformation will lead to different shapes of the resulting dendrimers.…”

Self-Assembling Drug Formulations with Tunable Permeability and Biodegradability

“…Usage of amphiphilic compounds in various technologies, including biomedical application, attracts much attention due to their unique functional properties and capacity to form different supramolecular assemblies [9,[13][14][15][16]. Of special importance is the application of surfactants as building blocks for the fabrication of nanocontainers (liposomes, micelles, niosomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, nonviral vectors, etc.)…”

“…Therefore, the choice of components for the design of nanocontainers is of key significance. Given the factors listed, cationic surfactants demonstrate beneficial potential in terms of their affinity toward negatively charged cell membranes, ability to integrate into the lipid bilayer, interaction with polyanions of DNA and other biological species [9,16]. At the same time, cationic surfactants are known to be rather toxic and poorly degradable [22], which limits their application.…”

“…At the same time, cationic surfactants are known to be rather toxic and poorly degradable [22], which limits their application. To avoid this limitation, different strategies are used, e.g., design of novel cationic surfactants with the head group differing from ammonium and bearing natural fragments, the enrichment of formulations with nontoxic nonionic surfactants, and the noncovalent modification of nontoxic lipid nanocarriers with minor additives of cationic surfactants to achieve balance between beneficial functionality and acceptable toxic effect [9,16,19,23,24].…”

Synthesis, Crystal Structure, and Luminescence of Cadmium(II) and Silver(I) Coordination Polymers Based on 1,3-Bis(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)adamantane

“…Molecules 2021, 26, 5400 2 of 10 adamantane ligands, which could be useful N,N'-linkers for constructing coordination polymers. Coordination polymers and metal-organic frameworks in particular are promising materials with a wide range of potential applications-gas storage and separation [11,12], enantioselective catalysis [13,14], supramolecular systems design [15], pollutant sensing [16,17], water purification [18], fabrication of electrochemical devices [19,20], and biological activity [21]. Coordination polymers based on 1,3-bis(1,2,4-triazol-4-yl)adamantane with Mo(IV), Cu(II), Zn(II), Cd(II), Ag(I), bimetallic Ag(I)/V(V), and Cu(II)/Mo(IV) were successfully synthesized and characterized by Domasevitch research group [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], but the coordination chemistry of its isomer, 1,3-bis(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)adamantane remained unexplored.…”