Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Mechanical twisting of a guest by a photoresponsive host

Abstract

Molecular analogues of a variety of mechanical devices such as shuttles, brakes, unidirectional rotors and tweezers have been created1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. But these ‘molecular machines’ have not yet been used to mechanically manipulate a second molecule in a controlled and reversible manner. Here we show that light-induced scissor-like conformational changes of one molecule5 can give rise to mechanical twisting of a non-covalently bound guest molecule. To realize this coupling of molecular motions, we use a previously designed system5: a ferrocene moiety with an azobenzene strap, each end of which is attached to one of the two cyclopentadienyl rings of the ferrocene unit, acts as a pivot so that photoisomerization of the strap rotates the ferrocene rings relative to each other and thereby also changes the relative position of two ‘pedal’ moieties attached to the ferrocene rings. We translate this effect into intermolecular coupling of motion by endowing the pedals with binding sites, which allow the host system to form a stable complex with a bidentate rotor molecule. Using circular dichroism spectroscopy, we show that the photoinduced conformational changes of the host are indeed transmitted and induce mechanical twisting of the rotor molecule. This design concept, which significantly extends the successful coupling of motion beyond the intramolecular level seen in synthetic allosteric receptors12, might allow for the remote control of molecular events in larger interlocked molecular systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Design and concept of light-powered molecular pedal.
Figure 2: Binding of rotary guest 2 with molecular pedal trans -1.
Figure 3: Circular dichroism (CD) visualization of the motions of guest–binding molecular pedals 2·(+ )-1 and 2·(- )-1 triggered by light.
Figure 4: Configurational aspects of the zinc porphyrin units of molecular pedal trans -1 and rotary guest 2 in 2· trans -1.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Kinbara, K. & Aida, T. Toward intelligent molecular machines: directed motions of biological and artificial molecules and assemblies. Chem. Rev. 105, 1377–1400 (2005)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Collin, J.-P., Dietrich-Buchecker, C., Gaviña, P., Jimenez-Molero, M. C. & Sauvage, J.-P. Shuttles and muscles: linear molecular machines based on transition metals. Acc. Chem. Res. 34, 477–487 (2001)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Balzani, V., Credi, A., Raymo, F. M. & Stoddart, J. F. Artificial molecular machines. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn Engl. 39, 3348–3391 (2000)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Badjic, J. D., Balzani, V., Credi, A., Silvi, S. & Stoddart, J. F. A molecular elevator. Science 303, 1845–1849 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Muraoka, T., Kinbara, K., Kobayashi, Y. & Aida, T. Light-driven open–close motion of chiral molecular scissors. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 125, 5612–5613 (2003)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Ishii, D. et al. Chaperonin-mediated stabilization and ATP-triggered release of semiconductor nanoparticles. Nature 423, 628–632 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Leigh, D. A., Wong, J. K. Y., Dehez, F. & Zerbetto, F. Unidirectional rotation in a mechanically interlocked molecular rotor. Nature 424, 174–179 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Tashiro, K., Konishi, K. & Aida, T. Metal bisporphyrinate double-decker complexes as redox-responsive rotating modules. Studies on ligand rotation activities of the reduced and oxidized forms using chirality as a probe. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 122, 7921–7926 (2000)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Kelly, T. R., De Silva, H. & Silva, R. A. Unidirectional rotary motion in a molecular system. Nature 401, 150–152 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Koumura, N., Zijlstra, R. W. J., van Delden, R. A., Harada, N. & Feringa, B. L. Light-driven monodirectional molecular rotor. Nature 401, 152–155 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Shinkai, S., Ogawa, T., Nakaji, T., Kusano, Y. & Manabe, O. Photocontrolled extraction ability of azobenzene-bridged azacrown ether. Tetrahedr. Lett. 20, 4569–4572 (1979)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Rebek, J. & Wattley, R. V. Allosteric effects: remote control of ion transport selectivity. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 102, 4853–4854 (1980)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Guo, Y.-M., Oike, H. & Aida, T. Chiroptical transcription of helical information through supramolecular harmonization with dynamic helices. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126, 716–717 (2004)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Borovkov, V. V., Hembury, G. A. & Inoue, Y. Origin, control, and application of supramolecular chirogenesis in bisporphyrin-based systems. Acc. Chem. Res. 37, 449–459 (2004)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Huang, X. et al. Absolute configurational assignments of secondary amines by CD-sensitive dimeric zinc porphyrin host. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 124, 10320–10335 (2002)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Harada, N., Chen, S. L. & Nakanishi, K. Quantitative definition of exciton chirality and the distant effect in the exciton chirality method. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 97, 5345–5352 (1975)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Hanazaki, I. & Akimoto, H. Optical rotatory power of 2,2′-dihydroxy-1,1′-binaphthyl and related compounds. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 94, 4102–4106 (1972)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Tamai, N. & Miyasaka, H. Ultrafast dynamics of photochromic system. Chem. Rev. 100, 1875–1890 (2000)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Spörlein, S. et al. Ultrafast spectroscopy reveals subnanosecond peptide conformational dynamics and validates molecular dynamics simulation. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 99, 7998–8002 (2002)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Wachtveitl, J. et al. Ultrafast conformational dynamics in cyclic azobenzene peptides of increased flexibility. Biophys. J. 86, 2350–2362 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  21. Gardner, A. B., Howard, J., Waddington, T. C., Richardson, R. M. & Tomkinson, J. The dynamics of ring rotation in ferrocene, nickelocene, and ruthenocene by incoherent quasi-elastic neutron scattering. Chem. Phys. 57, 453–460 (1981)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Stephenson, D. S. & Binsch, G. Improved algorism for the computation of exchange-broadened NMR bandshapes. J. Magn. Reson. 30, 625–626 (1978)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

T.M. thanks the JSPS Young Scientist Fellowship. This research was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas ‘Life-Surveyors’ (to K.K.). We thank Y. Casta and S. Nara for cooperation in synthesis, and N. Tamai and M. Irie for discussion on photophysics.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Kazushi Kinbara or Takuzo Aida.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

Reprints and permissions information is available at npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Notes

This file contains the Supplementary Methods (experimental details for synthesis and measurements) and Supplementary Figures 1-12. (PDF 1867 kb)

Supplementary Movie 1

This movie represents computer-generated 3D molecular models of 2otrans-1 and 2ocis-1 viewed from various angles. (MOV 9094 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Muraoka, T., Kinbara, K. & Aida, T. Mechanical twisting of a guest by a photoresponsive host. Nature 440, 512–515 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04635

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04635

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing