Cooperativity in Photofoldamer Chloride Double Helices Turned On with Sequences and Solvents, Around with Guests, and Off with Light.

Photofoldamers are sequence-defined receptors capable of switching guest binding on and off. When two foldamer strands wrap around the guest into 2:1 double helical complexes, cooperativity emerges, and with it comes the possibility to switch cooperativity with light and other stimuli. We use lessons from nonswitchable sequence isomers of aryl-triazole foldamers to guide how to vary the sequence location of azobenzenes from the end () to the interior () and report their impact on the cooperative formation of 2:1 complexes with Cl.

Revealing the Hidden Costs of Organization in Host-Guest Chemistry Using Chloride-Binding Foldamers and Their Solvent Dependence.

Preorganization is a key concept in supramolecular chemistry. Preorganized receptors enhance binding by minimizing the organization costs associated with adopting the conformation needed to orient the binding sites toward the guest. Conversely, poorly organized receptors show affinities below what is possible based on the potential of their specific binding interactions.

Polarity-Tolerant Chloride Binding in Foldamer Capsules by Programmed Solvent-Exclusion.

Persistent anion binding in a wide range of solution environments is a key challenge that continues to motivate and demand new strategies in synthetic receptor design. Though strong binding in low-polarity solvents has become routine, our ability to maintain high affinities in high-polarity solvents has not yet reached the standard set by nature. Anions are bound and transported regularly in aqueous environments by proteins that use secondary and tertiary structure to isolate anion binding sites from water.

Nanoporous Thin Films Formed from Photocleavable Diblock Copolymers on Gold Substrates Modified with Thiolate Self-Assembled Monolayers.

Nanoporous thin films formed on electrodes are considered functional elements of electrochemical sensing systems, thus motivating methods for their development. We report a preparative strategy detailing the effects of surface modification of gold substrates with thiolate self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on the properties of nanoporous thin films derived from polystyrene--poly(ethylene oxide) having a photocleavable -nitrobenzyl ester junction (PS-ν-PEO). Two PS-ν-PEO having similar PEO volume fractions (≈0.

Allosteric Control of Photofoldamers for Selecting between Anion Regulation and Double-to-Single Helix Switching.

Allosteric regulation of protein structure and function is a hallmark of biology. The structures of protein-like abiological foldamers have been subject to allosteric control, however, regulation of their function is rare. We report this behavior using a photoactive foldamer following the discovery that small and large anions select between single and double helical structures, respectively.

Sequence-Controlled Stimuli-Responsive Single-Double Helix Conversion between 1:1 and 2:2 Chloride-Foldamer Complexes.

The primary sequence in biopolymers carries the information to direct folded secondary structures, to modulate their stabilities, and to control the resultant functions. Our ability to encode such information into nonbiological oligomers and polymers, however, is still limited. Here, we describe a C-symmetric aryl-triazole foldamer that assembles into a chloride-templated 2:2 double helix, and the discovery that its interconversion with the simpler 1:1 single helix can be driven by solvent quality, temperature, and concentration.