Self‐assembled organic nanotubes: Toward attoliter chemistry

Abstract

Diverse chemical functionalization of the inner and outer surfaces of the nanotubes enables us to sense and visualize the encapsulation and transport behavior of biomacromolecular guests. The event occurs specifically in attoliter volume nanospace inside the hollow cylinder of the nanotubes. Comparison of the organic nanotube history with that of well‐known carbon nanotubes and a variety of molecular building blocks as tube‐forming compounds were first introduced. Asymmetric organic nanotubes with different inner and outer surfaces were discussed in terms of molecular design, immobilization of functional moieties, and molecular packing. Finally, the practical examples of the organic nanotubes as a nanocontainer, nanochannel, and nanopipette were also described to feature the concept of “attoliter chemistry.” © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46: 2601–2611, 2008

Multiple‐Stimuli Responsive Luminescent Gels Based on Cholesterol Containing Benzothiadiazole Fluorophores

“…[5,6] As we know, nanotubes, which have hollow structure with less than 100 nm inner diameters, have highly potential applications in drug delivery and nanoobjects. [7] In addition, the helical nanostructures constructed from π-conjugated fluorescent LMWGs, such as twisted ribbons and fibers, are also a topic of increasing interest [8] due to their academic importance and promising applications in chiral recognition, optoelectronic devices and biomaterials. [9][10][11][12] Stimuli-responsive organogels are a kind of fascinating LMWGs in which the morphology of molecules is regulated by external stimuli, including light, [13,14] pH, [15,16] ions, [17,18] sound, [19,20] and so on.…”

Facile preparation of polymer nanotube using self-assemblied metal nanotube as sacrificial template

“…MONT is a good template potential for the preparation of PNT because of simple preparation process and cheap raw materials. Shimizu group reported several MONT systems prepared by adding metal ions into the self-assembling system of amphiphilic molecules with different carbon chains [15][16][17][18]. The MONTs with various metal ions on the surface were successfully obtained.…”

Molecular Self-Assembly into One-Dimensional Nanotube Architectures and Exploitation of Their Functions

“…32 The details of the nano-bio applications of a variety of self-assembled nanotubes are reviewed elsewhere. 33 …”

“…In particular, capillary action allows us to effectively fill the nanotubes with, for example, gold nanoparticles (1-50 nm), 92,93 cadmium sulfide (2-3 nm), 87 magnetite (ca. 10 nm), 33 spherical protein Ferritin (12 nm), 94 and green fluorescent protein (GFP, 3 Â 4:5 nm) ( Figure 15). We have also reported that electrostatic interaction between the guests and inner surfaces of the nanotubes is also critical to promote the encapsulation of such guests without depending on capillary force.…”

“…19,30 Very recently, advanced functional organic nanotubes with different inner and outer surfaces have been produced and exhibited unique encapsulation, transport, and release properties of biomacromolecules as guests (Figure 1b). [31][32][33] Here we describe the effect of optimized molecular structures as tube-forming compounds on the size dimensions of resultant self-assembled nanotubes. We also address the morphological control of the organic nanotubes as well as the encapsulation behavior of guest molecules.…”