Abstract
In a famous 1987 essay, Westheimer explained why “nature chose phosphates” for the purpose of information (DNA) and energy (ATP) storage/transduction: in the absence of enzymes, phosphodiesters and phosphoanhydrides are unusually inert toward hydrolysis.[1] In our lab, we are currently working hard to hydrolyze such inert organophosphorus compounds without enzymes. When coupled with carbodiimide-driven condensation reactions, non-equilibrium steady states can be accessed that allow spatiotemporal control of self-assembly (as in nature’s microtubules) as well as fuel-driven mechanical motion (as in nature’s protein motors).
In this talk, I will present our ongoing work on the generation of chemically fuelled steady states featuring acylphosphates[2a], phosphoramidates[2b], pyrophosphates[2c], and phosphodiesters[2d]. Our recent advances on the creation of high-throughput methodology, the strategic use of organocatalysis to facilitate the condensation and hydrolysis reactions, the observation of transient self-assembly and of prototypes of autonomous molecular machines should be of interest to the livMatS community.
References
1 F. H. Westheimer, Science 1987, 235, 1173.
2 (a) A. Englert, F. Majer, J. L. Schiessl, A. J. C. Kuehne, M. von Delius, Chem 2024, 10, 910. (b) A. Englert, J. F. Vogel, T. Bergner, J. Loske, M. von Delius, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 15266. (c) J. Vogel, J. Sun, L. Chen, A. L. Schleper, T. Bergner, A. J. C. Kuehne, M. von Delius, Chem. Eur. J. 2022, 28, e202104116. (d) P. Hoffmann, S. Saha, J. Sun, A. Englert, M. von Delius, manuscript in preparation.
Brief Bio
Max von Delius is Professor of Organic Chemistry at Ulm University. He obtained his PhD at the University of Edinburgh (with David A. Leigh) and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto (with Vy M. Dong), before establishing his independent research group at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. His research interests include supramolecular chemistry, systems chemistry and the synthesis of functional organic materials. He has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant and has received the Cram-Lehn-Pedersen Prize.