A novel alkyne-terminated cubic-octameric POSS was synthesised in high yield (82-90%). The X-ray crystal structure revealed intra-and intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the amide groups of the arms.Hybrid biomaterials were synthesised in nearly quantitative yields via a click reaction with (i) azido-NFmoc-norleucine and (ii) 3 0 -azido-3 0 -deoxythymidine.Among the most commonly studied scaffolds for developing hybrid biomaterials 1-4 is polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS). POSS units are symmetrical, three-dimensional cubic molecules, which are unique nanometer-sized hybrid inorganicorganic materials 5,6 with the formula ( 'click' chemistry, is a simple method for coupling organic molecules containing azide and alkyne functional groups in high yields and its use in the elds of peptide and protein biomedical and material sciences is accelerating.22,23 The click reaction has been used to synthesise POSS biomaterials such as hybrid POSS-PEG hydrogels 24 that support chondrocyte attachment and proliferation. Only one synthetic approach towards peptidyl silsesquioxanes using click chemistry has been reported to date.25-30 focussing on the synthesis of octa(3-azidopropyl)polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane POSS-(N 3 ) 8 (Fig. 1) and its reaction with a variety of alkynes.25-36 The preparation of octa(3-azidopropyl)polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane POSS-(N 3 ) 8 requires a multi-step synthesis and suffers from a poor overall yield of 30-32%.
32The synthesis and click reaction of mono alkyneheptaisobutyl POSS were rst reported by Müller et al. 37 and Wu et al. 38 Müller et al. 37 have used aminopropylheptaisobutyl polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) to produce monoalkyne-POSS in three steps and the click coupling occurred between the azido-terminated polystyrenes and alkyne-POSS to afford mono-, di-, and pentafunctional POSS-containing hybrid polystyrenes as star-shaped telechelic POSS-containing hybrid polymers. Wu et al.38 have prepared alkyne-functionalized-POSS in three steps from allyl-heptaisobutyl substituted-POSS and the product was linked to an azido-functionalized elastomer of poly(styrene-b-(ethylene-co-butylene)-b-styrene) (SEB-CH 2 N 3 ) via a click coupling reaction to form a novel hybrid copolymer. These approaches focused mostly on the preparation of a hybrid copolymer based on mono-alkyne-heptaisobutyl and azido polystyrene. However, the preparation of octa-alkyne-terminated POSS and their click coupling reactions with azido-biomolecules to produce hybrid biomaterials has not been investigated yet. We believe that this approach will open a wide range of biomedical applications that were not accessible in the past.Herein we report a novel synthetic approach to hybrid biomaterials based on octa-alkyne-terminated POSS and their reaction with (i) azido-N-Fmoc-L-norleucine and (ii) 3 0 -azido-3 0 -deoxythymidine, using the CuAAC reaction. Our approach Fig. 1 Octa(3-azidopropyl)POSS.