Molecular machines and motors articles within Nature Chemistry

Featured

  • Review Article |

    Chemically fuelled synthetic molecular machines are capable of driving and sustaining non-equilibrium motion, analogous to the biomachinery that underpins life. This Review discusses the chemical and physical features of biological and synthetic chemical fuels and highlights potential challenges and opportunities for the development of synthetic chemically fuelled machinery.

    • Stefan Borsley
    • , David A. Leigh
    •  & Benjamin M. W. Roberts

  • Article |

    In a similar fashion to its macroscopic counterpart, molecular gearing is a correlated motion of intermeshed molecular fragments against one another. Now it has been shown that photogearing can be used to actively fuel molecular gearing motions with light and concomitantly shift the axis of rotation.

    • Aaron Gerwien
    • , Frederik Gnannt
    •  & Henry Dube

  • Article |

    Information is physical, but the flow between information, energy and mechanics in chemical systems remains largely unexplored. Now, an autonomous molecular motor has been analysed with information thermodynamics, which relates information to other thermodynamic parameters. This treatment provides a general thermodynamic understanding of molecular motors, with practical implications for machine design.

    • Shuntaro Amano
    • , Massimiliano Esposito
    •  & Benjamin M. W. Roberts

  • Article |

    In biological systems, controlled molecular motion along a particular path is realized by protein motors that travel along microtubule filaments. Now, control of motion with light has been achieved in a synthetic supramolecular system, in which anionic porphyrin molecules move along the fibres of a bis-imidazolium gel upon irradiation.

    • Mario Samperi
    • , Bilel Bdiri
    •  & David B. Amabilino

  • Article |

    A metal–organic framework (MOF) has been prepared that features dynamic rotors embedded within its crystalline lattice. The dipolar F2-functionalized carboxylate linkers—rapidly rotating at room temperature—show correlated behaviour upon cooling, converting the paraelectric MOF into an ordered antiferroelectric one below 100 K.

    • Y.-S. Su
    • , E. S. Lamb
    •  & S. E. Brown

  • Article |

    One-dimensional diffusive binding represents an important mechanism used by nature to facilitate many fundamental biochemical processes. Now, a completely synthetic system with similar capabilities has been constructed. The system was exploited to significantly speed up bimolecular reactions and to catalytically transport molecular cargo in solution and within physically separated compartments.

    • Lifei Zheng
    • , Hui Zhao
    •  & Wilhelm T. S. Huck

  • Article |

    A dynamic foldamer scaffold has now been ligated to a water-compatible, metal-centred binding site and a conformationally responsive fluorophore to form a receptor mimic that inserts into the membrane of artificial vesicles. Binding of specific carboxylate ligands induces a global conformational change that depends on the structure of the ligand, and can be detected via fluorescence.

    • Francis G. A. Lister
    • , Bryden A. F. Le Bailly
    •  & Jonathan Clayden

  • News & Views |

    Molecular daisy-chain structures are typically made up of two interlocked components and can exhibit muscle-like contraction and extension in one dimension. Zinc-based multicomponent systems that can operate in two and three dimensions have now been designed and synthesized.

    • Karine Fournel-Marotte
    •  & Frédéric Coutrot

  • Article |

    Effective regulation over the motion of self-propelled micro- and nanomotors is a challenging proposition. Now, self-assembled stomatocyte nanomotors with thermoresponsive polymer brushes have been designed that sense changes in local temperature and regulate the accessibility of the hydrogen peroxide fuel — thereby adjusting the speed and behaviour of nanomotor itself.

    • Yingfeng Tu
    • , Fei Peng
    •  & Daniela A. Wilson

  • Article |

    Control of motion at the molecular level is an integral requirement for the development of future nanoscale machinery. Now, governed by the fundamental reactivity principles of organometallic chemistry, a biaryl rotor is shown to exhibit 360° unidirectional rotary motion driven by the conversion of two simple fuels.

    • Beatrice S. L. Collins
    • , Jos C. M. Kistemaker
    •  & Ben L. Feringa

  • Article |

    Molecular machines that assemble polymers in a programmed sequence are fundamental to life. Now, synthetic machinery built from DNA has been used to execute a molecular program that produces peptides, or olefin oligomers, with a defined sequence. The oligomeric product is linked to a double-stranded DNA product that records the sequence of reactions that were executed.

    • Wenjing Meng
    • , Richard A. Muscat
    •  & Andrew J. Turberfield

  • News & Views |

    Mass production at the nanoscale requires molecular machines that can control, with high fidelity, the spatial orientation of other reactive species. The demonstration of a synthetic system in which a molecular robotic arm can be used to manipulate the position of a chemical cargo is a significant step towards achieving this goal.

    • Ivan Aprahamian

  • Article |

    Factory assembly lines often feature robots that pick up, reposition and connect components in a programmed manner. Now, it has been shown that a molecular machine is able to pick up a cargo, reposition it, set it down and release it at a site approximately 2 nm away from the starting position.

    • Salma Kassem
    • , Alan T. L. Lee
    •  & Jordi Solà

  • Article |

    Avoiding equal probability for clockwise and anticlockwise rotation is essential for the function of molecular motors, and both biological and synthetic systems take advantage of chirality to control the rotary direction. Now it has been shown, by integrating two rotor moieties in a symmetric meso motor design, that light-driven unidirectional rotary motion can be achieved in an achiral system.

    • Jos C. M. Kistemaker
    • , Peter Štacko
    •  & Ben L. Feringa

  • Article |

    Controlling the self-assembly of nanoparticles using light has been demonstrated in many systems where the particle surfaces are functionalized with photoswitchable ligands. Now, it has been shown that the light-controlled self-assembly of non-photoresponsive nanoparticles can be achieved in a quantitative and reversible fashion by placing them in a photoresponsive medium.

    • Pintu K. Kundu
    • , Dipak Samanta
    •  & Rafal Klajn

  • Article |

    Transferring molecular motion to macroscopic shape change of a crystal has potential application in actuators, or ‘artificial muscles’. Now, a single crystal of a Ni complex has been shown to exhibit a large, abrupt, temperature-induced crystal expansion/contraction near room temperature. The crystal deformation is induced by a collective 90° rotation of oxalate anions in the complex.

    • Zi-Shuo Yao
    • , Masaki Mito
    •  & Osamu Sato

  • Article |

    Self-powered micropumps that are turned on by the presence of their respective substrates are formed from surface-immobilized, ATP-independent enzymes. Coupling substrate-sensing with transport enables the design of devices that deliver cargo in response to specific stimuli. Demonstrated here is the release of insulin at a rate proportional to ambient glucose concentration.

    • Samudra Sengupta
    • , Debabrata Patra
    •  & Ayusman Sen

  • Article |

    Although much is understood about the mechanical behaviour of macroscopic machinery, less is known about their molecular equivalents. It is now shown that for molecular machinery consisting of hydrogen-bonded components their relative motion is strongly accelerated by adding small amounts of ‘lubricating’ water, whereas other protic liquids have much weaker or opposite effects.

    • Matthijs R. Panman
    • , Bert H. Bakker
    •  & Sander Woutersen

  • News & Views |

    A small molecule that mimics the sequence-specific peptide synthesis of nature's ribosomes paves the way for more elaborate artificial molecular synthesizers.

    • Paul R. McGonigal
    •  & J. Fraser Stoddart

  • News & Views |

    To improve the efficiency of molecular motors, a better understanding of the dynamics of their functional motions is required. Now, ultrafast fluorescence spectroscopy has been used to monitor the excited-state evolution of a light-driven molecular motor.

    • R. J. Dwayne Miller

  • Article |

    The light-driven power stroke of a unidirectional molecular motor is studied using ultrafast fluorescence spectroscopy. The evolution on the excited-state energy surface is observed on the 100 fs timescale and is accompanied by damped coherent molecular motion. The implications of these observations for the operation of the molecular motors are discussed.

    • Jamie Conyard
    • , Kiri Addison
    •  & Stephen R. Meech

  • News & Views |

    Autonomous propulsion of microparticles using catalytic olefin polymerization, and directional rotation of a molecule on a metal surface using electrons from the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope.

    • Ben Feringa

  • Article |

    Biological rotary motors can alter their mechanical function by changing the direction of rotary motion. Now, researchers have designed a synthetic light-driven rotary motor in which the direction of rotation can be reversed on command by changing the chirality of the molecular motor through base-induced epimerization.

    • Nopporn Ruangsupapichat
    • , Michael M. Pollard
    •  & Ben L. Feringa

  • News & Views |

    Controlling the movements of molecular systems through external stimuli is crucial for the construction of nanoscale mechanical machines. A spring-like compound has now been prepared — a double helicate that retains its handedness under ion-triggered extension and contraction.

    • Ben L. Feringa

  • News & Views |

    A molecular 'walker' can be made to move up and down a molecular 'track' by alternately locking and unlocking the two different types of covalent bonds that join the two components together. By changing the conditions under which one of the bond-forming/bond-breaking processes occurs, a directional bias for walking can be achieved.

    • Sijbren Otto

  • News & Views |

    Although it may seem counter-intuitive, the attraction between positively charged radical ions offers a new approach to driving controlled motion in molecular machines.

    • Harry L. Anderson

Browse broader subjects

Browse Molecular machines and motors across other nature.com journals