Bioinspired supramolecular polymer chemistry

ORGN 264

Steven C. Zimmerman, sczimmer@uiuc.edu, Darrell W. Kuykendall, Hugo Ong, and Taiho Park. Department of Chemistry, Roger Adams Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 600 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801
The high fidelity of DNA replication is partly due to base-pairing specificity. Inspired by DNA we have developed a series of artificial base-pairs that form hydrogen-bonded complexes that exhibit significantly higher stability and higher fidelity relative to their natural counterparts. Particularly useful is a urea of guanosine (UG unit) which pairs with 2,7-diamidonaphthyridine (DAN unit). These units can be readily incorporated into small molecules and macromolecules, and attached to nanoparticles and surfaces, in some cases using "click chemistry." This talk will describe this chemistry and the broad range of supramolecular structures that can be produced. Applications possible only with these very high affinity recognition units will be highlighted. Additionally, stimuli responsive recognition units will be introduced as a way to turn the recognition on and off. The ability to orthogonally address recognition events at the molecular level provides a degree of control necessary to replicate the biocomplexity of naturally occurring systems.