Kinetic Co-assembly Pathway Induced Chirality Inversion Along with Morphology Transition

Area of Science:

• Supramolecular Chemistry
• Materials Science
• Chirality Studies

Background:

• Understanding biological processes often requires mimicking dynamic changes like chirality inversion and morphology transitions.
• Achieving controlled kinetic co-assembly pathways in artificial systems to induce such transformations remains a significant challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of kinetic co-assembly pathways in inducing chirality inversion and morphology transition in phenylalanine-based nanofibers.
• To compare the outcomes of kinetic versus thermodynamic co-assembly pathways on the final structure of the assemblies.

Main Methods:

• Synthesized helical nanofibers using phenylalanine-based enantiomers (L/DPF) and naphthylamide derivatives.
• Employed kinetic co-assembly pathways, controlling the sequence of non-covalent interactions (hydrogen bonding and π-π stacking).
• Analyzed the resulting structures using techniques to determine helicity and morphology (details not specified in abstract).

Main Results:

• Helical nanofibers successfully transformed into kinetically trapped architectures with opposite helicity via the kinetic pathway.
• Co-assemblies formed through a thermodynamic pathway resulted in non-helical structures.
• The sequence of hydrogen bonding formation before π-π stacking was critical for achieving inverse helical handedness in the kinetic pathway.

Conclusions:

• The formation sequence of non-covalent interactions dictates the structural chirality and morphology of co-assemblies.
• Kinetic co-assembly pathways offer a viable strategy for controlling chirality inversion and morphology transitions in artificial systems.
• This work provides a novel approach for exploring dynamic structural changes by manipulating kinetic assembly processes.