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Updated: Feb 3, 2026

Development of Heterogeneous Enantioselective Catalysts using Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks MOFs
Published on: January 17, 2020
Mesoporous Encapsulated Chiral Nanogold for Use in Enantioselective Reactions
Ya Zhou1,2, Hanjun Sun1,3, Hongcheng Xu4
1Laboratory of Chemical Biology and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin, 130022, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Although various nanomaterials have been designed for biocatalysis, few of them can accelerate chemical reactions with high selectivity and stereocontrol, which remains them from being perfect alternatives to nature enzymes. Herein, inspired by the natural enzymes, an enantioselective nanomaterial has been constructed, with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as active centers, chiral cysteine (Cys) as selectors for chiral recognition, and expanded mesoporous silica (EMSN) as a skeleton of the artificial enzyme. In the oxidation of chiral 3,4-dihydroxy-phenylalanine (DOPA), the nanozyme with d-Cys shows preference to l-DOPA while the artificial enzyme with l-Cys shows preference to d-DOPA. Subsequent calculation of apparent steady-state kinetic parameters and activation energies together with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations showed that the different affinity precipitated by hydrogen bonding formation between chiral Cys and DOPA is the origin of chiral selectivity.
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