Information
•
Textbooks
•
Media
•
Resources edited by
Featured Molecules
William F. Coleman Wellesley College Wellesley, MA 02481
Nanoscale Molecular Tweezers December Featured Molecules The featured molecules of this month are drawn from the “Research Advances” column by Angela G. King (pages 1690–1694), and represent some of the structures from the research on molecular tweezers (published in J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2004, 126, 8124). The structures below are based on the figure on page 1690 showing two types of receptors that switch between U and W shapes upon coordination of soft metal cations, acting in the manner of mechanical tweezers. When viewing these molecules in Chime you must render in ball and stick or space filling modes in order to see
the incorporated metal ions. In several cases the torsion angles connecting the anthracene substituents to the rest of the molecule are not well defined and have been drawn as either coplanar or orthogonal to the central ring system. At a moderate level of theory, the torsion angle in those instances where it has been set to 90° displays a broad minimum ranging for 50–130°. Fully manipulable (Chime) versions of these and other molecules are available at the Only@JCE Online Web site: http://www.JCE.DivCHED.org/JCEWWW/Features/ MonthlyMolecules/2004/Dec
Py-Pym-Py Receptors
pyridine-pyrimidine-pyridine (transition from U shaped to W shaped)
pyridine-pyrimidine-pyridine (U shaped)
pyridine-pyrimidine-pyridine (W shaped)
(CONHAnt)2 Receptors
Acr2 Receptors
Substrates
TNF
WAcr2 (W shaped)
W(CONHAnt)2 (W shaped)
UAcr2 (U shaped)
1818
Journal of Chemical Education
TCNQ
U(CONHAnt)2 (U shaped)
•
Vol. 81 No. 12 December 2004
1,10-phenanthroline (phen)
•
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
