IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v424y2003i6945d10.1038_nature01758.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unidirectional rotation in a mechanically interlocked molecular rotor

Author

Listed:
  • David A. Leigh

    (University of Edinburgh, The King's Buildings)

  • Jenny K. Y. Wong

    (University of Edinburgh, The King's Buildings)

  • François Dehez

    (Universita degli Studi di Bologna)

  • Francesco Zerbetto

    (Universita degli Studi di Bologna)

Abstract

Molecular motor proteins are ubiquitous in nature1 and have inspired attempts to create artificial machines2 that mimic their ability to produce controlled motion on the molecular level. A recent example of an artificial molecular rotor is a molecule undergoing a unidirectional 120° intramolecular rotation around a single bond3,4; another is a molecule capable of repetitive unimolecular rotation driven by multiple and successive isomerization of its central double bond5,6,7,8. Here we show that sequential and unidirectional rotation can also be induced in mechanically interlocked assemblies comprised of one or two small rings moving around one larger ring. The small rings in these [2]- and [3]catenanes9 move in discrete steps between different binding sites located on the larger ring, with the movement driven by light, heat or chemical stimuli that change the relative affinity of the small rings for the different binding sites10,11,12. We find that the small ring in the [2]catenane moves with high positional integrity but without control over its direction of motion, while the two rings in the [3]catenane mutually block each other's movement to ensure an overall stimuli-induced unidirectional motion around the larger ring.

Suggested Citation

  • David A. Leigh & Jenny K. Y. Wong & François Dehez & Francesco Zerbetto, 2003. "Unidirectional rotation in a mechanically interlocked molecular rotor," Nature, Nature, vol. 424(6945), pages 174-179, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:424:y:2003:i:6945:d:10.1038_nature01758
    DOI: 10.1038/nature01758
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01758
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature01758?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bakalis, Evangelos, 2012. "Explicit propagators for a random walker and unidirectionality on linear chains," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(11), pages 3093-3101.
    2. Tomoki Nakajima & Shohei Tashiro & Masahiro Ehara & Mitsuhiko Shionoya, 2023. "Selective synthesis of tightly- and loosely-twisted metallomacrocycle isomers towards precise control of helicity inversion motion," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. Jiaqi Liang & Shuai Lu & Yang Yang & Yun-Jia Shen & Jin-Ku Bai & Xin Sun & Xu-Lang Chen & Jie Cui & Ai-Jiao Guan & Jun-Feng Xiang & Xiaopeng Li & Heng Wang & Yu-Dong Yang & Han-Yuan Gong, 2023. "Thermally-induced atropisomerism promotes metal-organic cage construction," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:424:y:2003:i:6945:d:10.1038_nature01758. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.