Chemical complexity.pdfVIP

View Online TUTORIAL REVIEW /csr | Chemical Society Reviews Chemical complexity—supramolecular self-assembly of synthetic and biological building blocks in water Jameel M. Zayed, Nicolas Nouvel, Urs Rauwald and Oren A. Scherman* Received 26th October 2009 First published as an Advance Article on the web 29th June 2010 DOI: 10.1039/b922348g Aqueous supramolecular chemistry, the non-covalent assembly of simple building blocks into higher ordered architectures in water has received much focus recently. Biological systems are 1 able to form complex, and well-de?ned microstructures essential to cellular function, and 1 0 G 2 8 supramolecular chemistry has demonstrated its utility in assembling molecules to form r 4 e 3 b 2 increasingly complex assemblies. This tutorial review will summarise non-covalent building blocks m 2 9 e t B based on both synthetic and biological systems in an aqueous environment, emphasising the p / e 9 S 3 complexity of the assemblies formed. Examples of higher ordered assemblies will be highlighted, 0 9 1 1 . n 0 from supramolecular plastics to spider silks, towards more compartmentalised protocell 1 o : y i precursors. o t d i s | r e g v r i o n . c processes occur. This review will place emphasis on the build- U s Introduction r . n s ing blocks required to assemble higher ordered, more complex a b h u Supramolecular self-assembly seeks to harness the versatility s p architectures. Examples are brought from recent literature that g / / n : of non-covalent interactions. Since the Nobel prize was o p t utilise components of both synthetic and biological origin. h t h Z awarded to Lehn, Cram and Pedersen for their work on n The review will be divided along these two themes, which n o e 0 cryptands in 1987, the ?eld has experienced signi?cant mirror each other in discussing supramolecular components as S 1 - t 0 progress. Host–g