Water-soluble, self-assembling container molecules: an update

Abstract

Over the past five years, an important development in the area of self-assembling containers has been the increase in interest in those containers that function in aqueous solution. This progress is a reflection of a similar trend within supramolecular chemistry in general, and is driven in part by the need to address issues and challenges within the biological sciences, as well as a desire to develop new strategies for greener chemistries carried out in water. It is also an opportunity to learn more about fundamental topics such as the hydrophobic effect. In this critical review we discuss progress in aqueous-based self-assembling container molecules since 2005 (177 references).

Drug Delivery by Water-Soluble Organometallic Cages

“…So far, these inorganic metalla-cages have been used to generate a confined environment to not only encapsulate solvent molecules, but also to protect or stabilise sensitive compounds, to recognise and trap specific guest molecules, or to act as a microreactor for specific reactions [18]. Consequently, it is not surprising that the strategies developed to build up inorganic metalla-assemblies have been applied to organometallic chemistry.…”

“…The water solubility and stability of organometallic compounds are advantageous, and organometallic chemistry in aqueous-phase is growing rapidly [18]. The overall hydrophilicity of the metalla-cycles combined with potential inner hydrophobic interactions with guest molecules have been exploited previously.…”

Bioinspired Self‐Assembly I: Self‐Assembled Structures

“…21 While the majority of these larger structures fall within the realm of metallosupramolecular chemistry, 22 -27 a range of such larger metal-free structures has now also been reported. 8,14,[28][29][30][31][32] A number of the larger polyhedral structures 28,33 mirror the shapes of particular naturally occurring systems such as the virus capsids and the protein enzyme lumazine synthase. The capsids represent a welldefined group of biostructures 34 that serve as the protein shells of viruses and consist of oligomeric structural subunits that enclose the genetic material of the virus.…”

Amplifying undetectable NMR signals to study host–guest interactions and exchange

“…Among the developed and studied host–guest assemblies, water-soluble systems have garnered much interest due to their potential applications. 1–5 While the hydrophilicity of the outer sphere of the host makes it water soluble, the hydrophobicity of its cavity allows for the inclusion of guests. This capacity has been exploited, for example, for generating confined hydrophobic spaces, 6,7 synthetic cyclization, 8,9 drug delivery, 10 molecular switches, 11 molecular imaging, 12 anion receptors 13 and theranostic systems.…”