Substrate-Induced Self-Assembly of Cooperative Catalysts

Dissipative self-assembly processes in nature rely on chemical fuels that activate proteins for assembly through the formation of a noncovalent complex. The catalytic activity of the assemblies causes fuel degradation, resulting in the formation of an assembly in a high-energy, out-of-equilibrium state. Herein, we apply this concept to a synthetic system and demonstrate that a substrate can induce the formation of vesicular assemblies, which act as cooperative catalysts for cleavage of the same substrate.