Highly Functionalized β-Cyclodextrins by Solid-Supported Synthesis

Recently, supramolecular chemistry has been expanding to supramolecular polymer chemistry. The combination of cyclic molecules and linear polymers has provided many kinds of intriguing supramolecular architectures, such as rotaxanes and catenanes. This tutorial review overviews construction of some supramolecular architectures formed by cyclodextrins or their derivatives with guest molecules. In the first part, the construction of supramolecular structures of cyclodextrins with some polymers (polyrotaxanes) is described. In the second part, formation of supramolecular oligomers and polymers formed by cyclodextrin derivatives is described.

The design of artificial catalysts able to compete with the catalytic proficiency of enzymes is an intense subject of research. Non-covalent interactions are thought to be involved in several properties of enzymatic catalysis, notably (i) the confinement of the substrates and the active site within a catalytic pocket, (ii) the creation of a hydrophobic pocket in water, (iii) self-replication properties and (iv) allosteric properties. The origins of the enhanced rates and high catalytic selectivities associated with these properties are still a matter of debate. Stabilisation of the transition state and favourable conformations of the active site and the product(s) are probably part of the answer. We present here artificial catalysts and biomacromolecule hybrid catalysts which constitute good models towards the development of truly competitive artificial enzymes.