Macromolecular Chemistry

Controlling macromolecular topology with genetically encoded SpyTag-SpyCatcher chemistry.

Control of molecular topology constitutes a fundamental challenge in macromolecular chemistry. Here we describe the synthesis and characterization of artificial elastin-like proteins (ELPs) with unconventional nonlinear topologies including circular, tadpole, star, and H-shaped proteins using genetically encoded SpyTag-SpyCatcher chemistry. SpyTag is a short polypeptide that binds its protein p...

Birth of a New Macromolecular Architecture: Dendrimers as Quantized Building Blocks for Nanoscale Synthetic Organic Chemistry

Macromolecular crowding: chemistry and physics meet biology (Ascona, Switzerland, 10-14 June 2012).

More than 60 years of biochemical and biophysical studies have accustomed us to think of proteins as highly purified entities that act in isolation, more or less freely diffusing until they find their cognate partner to bind to. While in vitro experiments that reproduce these conditions largely remain the only way to investigate the intrinsic properties of molecules, this approach ignores an im...

Cyclodextrin-based inclusion complexation bridging supramolecular chemistry and macromolecular self-assembly.

Research into macromolecular self-assembly has been progressively developing since the 1970s but with a little affect from the achievements of supramolecular chemistry. In recent years, this situation has changed as more and more factors and concepts in supramolecular chemistry have been introduced into studies of the self-assembly of polymers. In this respect, inclusion complexation based on c...

Macromolecular Cryocrystallography

The current techniques for X-ray-diffraction data collection from macromolecular crystals at cryogenic temperatures are reviewed. The development of the experimental methods is outlined and the basic concepts pertaining to radiation damage and cryoprotection are summarized. Emphasis is placed on the practical aspects important to the success of the techniques, and a detailed account of these is...