The torso, arms and sleeves were chemically outfitted to provide strong interactions to hold the sleeves tightly in place. The suit was put on piece-by-piece and "sewed" together in a final step: in a self-organization process, two large ring-shaped molecules (crown ethers) slipped like sleeves onto the molecular "arms." A slim center (a central aromatic ring) was hooked to two bulging "shoulders" (anthracene ring systems), each attached to an "arm." Next, the molecule was dressed in its suit. The chemists first produced a stiff, linear molecular framework. The research is published this month in the German chemistry journal, Angewandte Chemie. "Like a well-tailored suit, all of the individual components must be perfectly coordinated with each other regarding their shape, size and functional groups," Stoddart said. The suit must be a flexible molecule that can be assembled around the body from a few individual components. The inner molecule, the "body," should be relatively stiff and oblong, Stoddart said.
They first used computer simulations to develop a plan of attack. The team of chemists has successfully synthesized the simplest representative of this class of compounds: a suitane. "The inspiration for the name came from looking at my grandson in a onesie, an American term I had never heard before," he said. "Discovering the way to dress a molecule with another one is a prelude to constructing artificial systems reminiscent of the living cell," Stoddart said.Ī suitane - a suitane with five limbs - looks like a doll wearing a one-piece romper enclosing all five limbs: two legs, two arms and the head, said Stoddart, a pioneer in supermolecular chemistry who grew up in Scotland. The researchers have named these novel compounds "suitanes," based on their resemblance to a "torso" with two or more "limbs" that is completely enveloped in a one-piece "suit." The number of limbs is indicated by a number inserted into the name of the compound -for example, a suitane has two limbs and a suitane has three.