Interlocked molecules articles from across Nature Portfolio

Catenanes are topologically non-trivial and, perhaps for this reason, molecules composed of two oriented rings have always simply been referred to as ‘topologically chiral’. Now it has been shown that the same stereogenic unit can arise in systems whose stereochemistry is Euclidean, suggesting a need to rethink this fundamental form of mechanical chirality.

Sensing small biomolecules in biofluids using host-guest chemosensors remains challenging, in part due to the impact of interfering components. Here, the authors develop a dual-macrocyclic rotaxane for tryptophan detection which can function in biofluids such as human serum and urine.

An electrically driven motor on the molecular scale based on [3]catenane is described, in which two cyclobis(paraquat-p-phenylene) rings operate by means of redox reactions, demonstrating highly unidirectional movement around a circular loop.

Interlocked shape-persistent organic cages are rare structures and the majority are formed using π-stacking as the driving force. Now it is shown that weak dispersion interactions—which are modulated by changing the 1,4-substituents of the constituent dialdehyde linkers—can be used to form interlocked dimeric and trimeric catenated cages.

Preassembled materials are ubiquitous in our everyday life due to their readiness and functionality; an end-user simply follows instructions to assemble them and harness function. Here, metastable rotaxanes are utilized to approach preassembled materials: a multicomponent, preprogrammed system can be conveniently (via heating) transformed into colorful polymer networks at the end-user’s will.

Amplifying molecular motion to macroscopic material property is attractive but challenging. Here, the authors report mechanically interlocked networks with dense rotaxane backbones whose microscopic motion is integrated into decent mechanical properties of bulk materials.