Mie University Department of Chemistry for Materials General Principles and Selected Examples in Supramolecular Chemistry Prof. Yang Kim (
[email protected]) Kumamoto University 2. Solution host-guest chemistry 2.1 Introduction: guests in solution The host–guest chemistry of anions, cations and neutral-guest species in solution. The electrostatic charge on any ion must be balanced by a corresponding counter-ion. Thus a ‘cation’ or ‘anion’ host is always a host for an ion pair (either contact or solvent-separated). The effect of the counter-ion is sometimes ignored or assumed to be negligible, particularly + - − if weakly interacting counter-ions are used, such as NBu 4 , PF 6 , or B(C 6H3(CF 3)2)4 . However, there are a number of successful ion-pair binding hosts . Macrocyclic receptor that binds solvent separated ion-pairs Association of ZnDPA probe with phosphatidylserine head group. False colored fluorescence image of a living rat bearing two tumors. 2.2 Macrocyclic versus acyclic hosts Two major classes of host: acyclic (podands ) and cyclic (macrocycles, macrobicycles or macrotricycles ). Podand : An acyclic chain-like or branching host with a number of binding sites that are situated at intervals along the length of the molecule, or about a common spacer. Podand: Linear or branching chain species with two or more sets of guest-binding functional groups positioned on the spacer unit in such a way as to chelate a target guest species to maximise guest affinity (cf . co-operativity ). Podands generally have a high degree of flexibility and on binding to a guest the conformational change that occurs to produce a stable host–guest complex, may result in allosteric effects .