Control and Transfer of Chirality Within Well-Defined Tripodal Supramolecular Cages

Abstract

The development of new strategies to turn achiral artificial hosts into highly desirable chiral receptors is a crucial challenge in order to advance the fields of asymmetric transformations and enantioselective sensing. Over the past few years, C 3 symmetrical cages have emerged as interesting class of supramolecular hosts that have been reported as efficient scaffolds for chirality dynamics (such as generation, control, and transfer). On this basis, this mini review, which summarizes the existing examples of chirality control and propagation in tripodal supramolecular cages, aims at discussing the benefits and perspectives of this approach.

Frustrated behavior of Lewis/Brønsted pairs inside molecular cages

“…Moreover, the aromatic rings of the linkers adopt a helical arrangement: the chirality of the CTV propagates along the linkers and the lateral arms present a Λ (respectively Δ ) propeller-like arrangement that is imposed by the M configuration (respectively P ) of the CTV unit. 29 This induces a strong twist of the whole framework leading to extremely narrow windows and probably precluding the access of a basic molecule to the azaphosphatrane center. This could account for the lack of reaction between the acidic azaphosphatrane unit and the basic − CD 2 CN, MeO − , NaH or t -BuO − .…”

Controlling Chiral Self-Sorting in Truxene-Based Self-Assembled Cages

“…In this context, C 3 symmetrical cages have emerged as an interesting class of supramolecular compounds for studying chirality dynamics [44]. Among others, this phenomenon was recently observed with the family of face-rotating polyhedral [45][46][47][48][49][50][51].…”

Rationalization of chirality transfer and fast conformational changes in a tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine-based cage

“…In particular, it was shown that the chirality of the cyclotriveratrylene unit (CTV), once included in a C 3 -symmetrical hemicryptophane cage, can propagate along the linkers to control the chirality of both the arms and the other unit located at the opposite side of the cage. 2 …”