Supramolecular assembly-enabled homochiral polymerization of short (dA) oligonucleotides

A goal of supramolecular chemistry is to create covalent polymers of precise composition and stereochemistry from complex mixtures by the reversible assembly of specific monomers prior to covalent bond formation. We illustrate the power of this approach with short oligomers of deoxyadenosine monophosphate ((dA)3'p), n ≥ 3, which form supramolecular assemblies with cyanuric acid. The addition of a condensing agent to these assemblies results in their selective, non-enzymatic polymerization to form long polymers (e.g., (dA)₁₀₀3'p). Significantly, mixtures of D- and L-(dA)₅3'p form homochiral covalent polymers, which demonstrates self-sorting of racemic monomers and covalent bond formation exclusively in homochiral assemblies.