Molecular Self Assembly

Information about Molecular Self Assembly

An example of a molecular self-assembly through hydrogen bonds reported by Meijer and coworkers in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 1998, 37, p 75-78.

Molecular self-assembly is the assembly of molecules without guidance or management from an outside source.There are two types of self-assembly, intramolecular self-assembly and intermolecular self-assembly. Most often the term molecular self-assembly refers to intermolecular self-assembly, while the intramolecular analog is more commonly called folding.

Supramolecular Systems

Molecular self-assembly is a key concept in supramolecular chemistry since assembly of the molecules is directed through noncovalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonding, metal coordination, hydrophobic forces, van der Waals forces, pi-pi interactions, and/or electrostatic effects. Simple examples include the formation of a micelle or a Langmuir monolayer by surfactant molecules in solution. More advanced examples of supramolecular assemblies demonstrate that a variety of different shapes and sizes can be obtained using molecular self-assembly.

Biological Systems

Molecular self-assembly is crucial to the function of cells. It is exhibited in the self-assembly of lipids to form the membrane, the formation of double helical DNA through hydrogen bonding of the individual strands, and the assembly of proteins to form quaternary structures. Molecular self-assembly of incorrectly folded proteins into insoluble amyloid fibers is responsible for infectious prion-related neurodegenerative diseases.

Molecular nanotechnology

Molecular self-assembly is an important method used in molecular nanotechnology to construct objects at the nanoscale and microscale. Using molecular self-assembly the final (desired) structure is programmed in the shape and functional groups of the molecules. Self-assembly is referred to as a 'bottom-up' manufacturing technique in contrast to a 'top-down' technique such as lithography where the desired final structure is carved from a larger block of matter. Microchips of the future might be made by molecular self-assembly. An advantage to constructing nanostructure using molecular self-assembly for biological materials is that they will degrade back into individual molecules that can be broken down by the body.

External

Molecular Self-Assembly papers
Beyond molecules: Self-assembly of mesoscopic and macroscopic components
Whitesides, G. M. & Grzyboski, B. (2002) Science 295, 2418-2421.
Rothemund PWK, Papadakis N, Winfree E (2004) Algorithmic Self-Assembly of DNA Sierpinski Triangles. PLoS Biol 2(12)
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• • [ e] Subfields of Nanotechnology
Nanomaterials (Fullerenes • Nanoparticles) Nanomedicine Molecular self-assembly Molecular electronics Scanning probe microscopy Nanolithography Molecular nanotechnology

molecule is defined as a sufficiently stable electrically neutral group of at least two atoms in a definite arrangement held together by strong chemical bonds.^[1]^[2] In organic chemistry and biochemistry, the term molecule
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Self-assembly is a term used to describe processes in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction.
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folding is the process by which a molecule assumes its shape or conformation. The process can also be desribed as intramolecular self-assembly where the molecule is directed to form a specific shape through noncovalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonding, metal
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Supramolecular chemistry refers to the area of chemistry that focuses on the noncovalent bonding interactions of molecules.^[1]^[2] While traditional chemistry focuses on the covalent bond, supramolecular chemistry examines the weaker and reversible noncovalent
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hydrogen bond is a special type of dipole-dipole bond that exists between an electronegative atom and a hydrogen atom bonded to another electronegative atom. This type of bond always involves a hydrogen atom, thus the name.
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hydrophobic effect is the property that nonpolar molecules tend to form intermolecular aggregates in an aqueous medium and analogous intramolecular interactions.^[1]^[2] The name arises from the combination of water in Attic Greek hydro-
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van der Waals force is sometimes used as a synonym for the totality of non-covalent forces (also known as intermolecular forces). These forces, which act between stable molecules, are weak compared to those appearing in chemical bonding.
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Stacking in supramolecular chemistry refers to a stacked arrangement of aromatic molecules, which interact through aromatic interactions. The most popular example of a stacked system is found for consecutive base pairs in DNA.
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Micella redirects here. For the brachiopod genus, see Micella (brachiopod).

A micelle (rarely micella, plural micellae) is an aggregate of surfactant molecules dispersed in a liquid colloid.
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A monolayer is a single, closely packed layer of atoms, molecules, or cells. [1] .

Chemistry

A Langmuir monolayer or insoluble monolayer is a one-molecule thick insoluble layer of an organic material spread onto an aqueous subphase.
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Surfactants, also known as tensides, are wetting agents that lower the surface tension of a liquid, allowing easier spreading, and lower the interfacial tension between two liquids.
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supramolecular assembly or "supermolecule" is a well defined complex of molecules held together by noncovalent bonds. While a supramolecular assembly can be simply composed of two molecules (e.g.
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Lipids can be broadly defined as any fat-soluble (hydrophobic), naturally-occurring molecules. The term is more-specifically used to refer to fatty-acids and their derivatives (including tri-, di-, and monoglycerides and phospholipids) as well as other fat-soluble sterol-containing
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In biochemistry, quaternary structure is the arrangement of multiple folded protein molecules in a multi-subunit complex.

Description and examples

Many proteins are actually assemblies of more than one polypeptide chain, which in the context of the larger assemblage are
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Amyloids are insoluble fibrous protein aggregations sharing specific structural traits.

Definition controversy

The name amyloid comes from the early mistaken identification of the substance as starch (amylum
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Prion Diseases (TSEs)
Classification & external resources

ICD-10 A81
ICD-9 046

A prion (IPA: /ˈpriːɒn/^[1]
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Molecular Nanotechnology

Molecular assembler
Mechanosynthesis
Nanorobotics
Grey goo
K. Eric Drexler
Engines of Creation
See also:
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1 nanometre =
SI units
010⁻⁹ m 010⁻³ μm
US customary / Imperial units
010⁻⁹ ft 010⁻⁹ in

A nanometre (American spelling: nanometer, symbol nm
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Nanotechnology refers broadly to a field of applied science and technology whose unifying theme is the control of matter on the atomic and molecular scale, normally 1 to 100 nanometers, and the fabrication of devices within that size range.
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Nanomaterials is the study of how materials behave when their dimensions are reduced to the nanoscale. It can also refer to the materials themselves that are used in nanotechnology.
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fullerenes, discovered in 1985 by Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley at the University of Sussex and Rice University, are a family of carbon allotropes named after Richard Buckminster Fuller and are sometimes called buckyballs.
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nanoparticle (or nanopowder or nanocluster or nanocrystal) is a microscopic particle with at least one dimension less than 100 nm. Nanoparticle research is currently an area of intense scientific research, due to a wide variety of potential applications in
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Nanomedicine is the medical application of nanotechnology. It covers areas such as nanoparticle drug delivery and possible future applications of molecular nanotechnology (MNT) and nanovaccinology.
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Molecular electronics (sometimes called moletronics) is an interdisciplinary theme that spans physics, chemistry, and materials science. The unifying feature of this area is the use of molecular building blocks for the fabrication of electronic components, both passive (e.
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Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) is a new branch of microscopy that forms images of surfaces using a physical probe that scans the specimen. An image of the surface is obtained by mechanically moving the probe in a raster scan of the specimen, line by line, and recording the
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Nanolithography — or lithography at the nanometer scale — refers to the fabrication of nanometer-scale structures, meaning patterns with at least one lateral dimension between the size of an individual atom and approximately 100 nm.
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