Same building block, but diverse surface-confined self-assemblies: solvent and concentration effects-induced structural diversity towards chirality and achirality

Biomimetic Self-Assembled Chiral Inorganic Nanomaterials: A New Strategy for Solving Medical Problems

The rapid expansion of the study of chiral inorganic structures has led to the extension of the functional boundaries of inorganic materials. Nature-inspired self-assembled chiral inorganic structures exhibit diverse morphologies due to their high assembly efficiency and controlled assembly process, and they exhibit superior inherent properties such as mechanical properties, chiral optical activity, and chiral fluorescence. Although chiral self-assembled inorganic structures are becoming more mature in chiral catalysis and chiral optical regulation, biomedical research is still in its infancy. In this paper, various forms of chiral self-assembled inorganic structures are summarized, which provides a structural starting point for various applications of chiral self-assembly inorganic structures in biomedical fields. Based on the few existing research statuses and mechanism discussions on the chiral self-assembled materials-mediated regulation of cell behavior, molecular probes, and tumor therapy, this paper provides guidance for future chiral self-assembled structures to solve the same or similar medical problems. In the field of chiral photonics, chiral self-assembled structures exhibit a chirality-induced selection effect, while selectivity is exhibited by chiral isomers in the medical field. It is worth considering whether there is some correspondence or juxtaposition between these phenomena. Future chiral self-assembled structures in medicine will focus on the precise treatment of tumors, induction of soft and hard tissue regeneration, explanation of the biochemical mechanisms and processes of its medical effects, and improvement of related theories.

Odd-Even Effect on Supramolecular Co-Assemblies: Control over the Two-Dimensional Self-Assemblies of a Fluorenone Derivative with Asymmetrically Substituted Alkyl Chains

The precise control of two-dimensional supramolecular co-assemblies presents a research topic related to advance nanotechnology. Here, we report a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) study of the mixture behavior of three fluorenone derivatives at the liquid-solid interface. The target molecule is F-C₁₂C₁₃ whose structure bears asymmetrical alkyls, whereas the regulating molecules, either F-C₁₂C₁₂ or F-C₁₃C₁₃, are structurally symmetric. By STM imaging of systematic mixtures with various volumes among the sample solutions, we found that the mixing ratio mainly determined the binary outcomes. Compared with F-C₁₂C₁₂, F-C₁₃C₁₃ shows a stronger ability to dominate the patterning, explained by the larger binding and adsorption energies calculated by the force field simulations. Moreover, the odd-even effect exists in the system. Overall, we acquired knowledge about the regulating ability of bi-component supramolecular assembling, especially for structurally asymmetric molecular systems.

Supramolecular fibrous gels with helical pitch tunable by polarity of alcohol solvents

A sugar-based, low-molecular-weight gelator 16AG, can gelatinize primary alcohols by forming supramolecular fibers. We obtained non-helical, tape-like fibers in methanol and ethanol but helical fibers in alcohols with at least three carbons. The pitch of the helical fibers became shorter with increasing carbon number.