Dynamic combinatorial chemistry: on the road to fulfilling the promise

Dynamic combinatorial chemistry makes use of reversible reactions between functionalised monomeric building blocks to generate a mixture of products (dimers or oligomers) under thermodynamic equilibrium. This system reorganises upon addition of a target so that species that bind to, and are therefore stabilised by the target, are favourably formed and are thus amplified. Since the mid-1990's, dynamic combinatorial chemistry has been successfully applied to the identification/selection of ion receptors, enzyme inhibitors, catalysts, materials and nucleic acid ligands. Although it is now established as a powerful tool with broad applications some intrinsic limitations appeared when working on systems of increasing complexity. We present here the most recent advances in the field of dynamic combinatorial chemistry that have been developed to overcome these limitations and explore new areas of application.