Supramolecular Self-Assembly Based on Natural Small Molecules

Abstract

Natural products have been widely used in the construction of supramolecular self-assemblies due to not only their abundant resources, unique chiral structures, and multiple reaction sites, but also the good biocompatibility and the controllable degradability. Through the simple chemical modification natural products-based functional molecules would self-assemble into various supramolecular assemblies primarily promoted by non-covalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking, van der Waals forces, electrostatic interactions, and charge-transfer interactions. During the assembly process, their unique molecular chirality would be transferred and magnified into supramolecular assemblies, thus providing a facile method to fabricate helical ribbons, nanotubes, and other chiral nanostructures. Furthermore, their good biocompatibility and biological activity endow the assemblies with the ability to be widely applied in tissue engineering, drug delivery, cell imaging, and so on. In this review, recent developments of supramolecular self-assemblies based on amino acids, sugars, nucleosides, steroids, triterpenoids and other natural products were summarized.

Research Progress of Carrier-Free Antitumor Nanoparticles Based on Phytochemicals

“…Therefore, compounds that can form non covalent bond force between molecules can usually produce self-assembly. Drug or phytochemical molecules could self-assemble into nanoparticles under the dynamic control of noncovalent bonds, such as hydrogen bond, π - π interaction, van der Waals force, charge transfer effect, dipole-dipoles and hydrophobic interactions ( Whitesides and Grzybowski, 2002 ; Rybtchinski, 2011 ; Gao et al, 2016 ; Yang et al, 2019 ). When molecules are combined by hydrogen bond, single or multiple hydrogen bond can be formed.…”

Novel Temperature-Responsive Rosin-Derived Supramolecular Hydrogels Constructed by New Semicircular Aggregates

“…Due to the pressure from the dwindling petroleum resources, exploiting LMWGs from naturally occurring molecules or their derivatives as building blocks has drawn considerable attention. − First, natural resources impart biocompatibility and biodegradability to supramolecular hydrogels, meeting the requirements for biomedical applications. , In addition, the naturally occurring molecules usually contain unique chiral structures, which may endow the microstructure with chirality. ,− In the past decades, supramolecular hydrogels prepared from cholic acid, − amino acid, , carbohydrate, − glycyrrhizic acid, ,, and so forth have been reported. Rosin as an abundant biomass resource has been widely used in inks, coatings, rubbers, adhesives, food products, and polyurethane materials. − It is mainly composed of abietic acid, which contains an extremely hydrophobic rigid tricyclic hydrophenanthrene skeleton. − Therefore, rosin is a promising candidate for preparing bio-based amphipathic LMWGs.…”

Development of Natural-Drugs-Based Low-Molecular-Weight Supramolecular Gels

“…With the further development of research, supramolecular gels formed from natural small molecular drugs have attracted much attention from researchers [13,14]. The natural small molecular drug is a kind of substance derived from biological metabolism, which generally refers to the effective components of traditional Chinese medicine, such as paclitaxel, camptothecin, rhein, curcumin, and so on.…”