Extremely Slow Dynamics of an Abiotic Helical Assembly: Unusual Relevance to the Secondary Structure of Proteins

Serendipitously, we found that isoleucine methylester functionalized perylenediimide 1 undergoes an extremely slow supramolecular helical assembly over a day's time. Surprisingly, heating led to irreversible chiral denaturation. However, reversible helical assembly could be achieved only in the presence of nondenatured aggregates of 1, which act as seeds. The intriguing functional relevance deduced from 1 was employed to draw parallels with the secondary structure of proteins, envisaging its plausible implications.