Exploring the tubular self-assembly landscape of dinucleobase amphiphiles in water

Abstract

The tubular aqueous assembly of dinucleobase amphiphilic monomers endowed with anionic, neutral or cationic groups is investigated under diverse conditions.

Stacked or Folded? Impact of Chelate Cooperativity on the Self-Assembly Pathway to Helical Nanotubes from Dinucleobase Monomers

“…Dinucleobase derivatives GC and AU (Figure c) share a common structure designed to yield self-assembled nanotubes based on our own previous experience. − The complementary nucleobases were connected through a rigid and linear p- phenylene block attached at the purine 8- and pyrimidine 5-positions. In this way, association through Watson–Crick pairing provides a 90° angle between monomers, which can favor the formation of unstrained rectangular assemblies ( i .…”

Self-assembly of fullerene C60-based amphiphiles in solutions

“…Some water soluble C 60 derivatives are also soluble in polar organic solvents. For example, water soluble C 60 derivatives bearing PEO chains (17,18) can also form spherical aggregates in THF. 81 For other C 60 -based amphiphiles bearing hydrophilic or polar groups, they may not be dissolved in pure water due to their relatively small HLB values.…”

“…Organic amphiphilic molecules, including both artificial and naturally occurring surfactants, are important building blocks to construct supramolecular structures in solutions such as micelles, vesicles, tubes, and lyotropic liquid crystals. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Each of these amphiphiles has one or several alkyl chains as the hydrophobic part. The hydrophobic/hydrophobic interaction and van der Waals attraction among these alkyl chains, together with the hydration forces and/or electrostatic interaction caused by the hydrophilic headgroups, drive the selfassembly and finally lead to the formation of various supramolecular structures.…”

Chiral nanotubes self-assembled from discrete non-covalent macrocycles

“…5, respectively). 44 The investigation of the aggregation was performed as a function of temperature, concentration and environment (which included solvent composition and pH). Even though, nanotube formation was reached for all compounds in varied experimental conditions, remarkable results were obtained when subtle changes in specific parameters or compound structure were applied.…”