ROCOCO · CONFORMATIONAL COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL

We aim to offer to science a molecular scale mechanism for communication and control. Using stereochemical information and conformational control as the mechanism by which that information is transmitted and processed, we take inspiration from the phenomenon of allostery in biology, and will put to dynamic use a set of conformationally controlled foldamer structures. We will use these structures to convey information over multi-nanometre distances, allowing control of chemical function from a remote site. By embedding the foldamers into membranes, we will control chemistry (eg catalytic activity) within an artificial vesicle by communicating information through the chemically impermeable phospholipid bilayer.To achieve our aim we will synthesise oligomeric and polymeric compounds with well-defined helical conformations, and use a stereochemical influence located at one terminus to induce a conformational preference (for the left or the right handed form of the helix) which is relayed to a site many nanometres distant. Precedent suggests that by employing polymeric structures we will achieve control even over micrometre scales. Simple but powerful new techniques will quantify the remote (on a molecular scale) transmission of information by NMR, circular dichroism spectrophotometry and/or fluorescence. The result of the information relay will be a detectable change in chemical reactivity or binding properties and one aim will be to vastly increase, by orders of magnitude, the distance over which remote stereochemical control is possible (from the current 2.5 nm to the order of >100 nm).The feature which distinguishes biology from chemistry is information, and in particular the ability to encode and process information using molecular interactions. Our project will take a step towards the development of designed chemical structures which can mimic, using far simpler molecules, the function of biological communication systems.