ISSN:
0899-0042
Keywords:
liquid crystals
;
circular dichroism
;
X-ray diffraction
;
self-recognition
;
salt
;
Chemistry
;
Organic Chemistry
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
Notes:
The title compounds show a pronounced cation-directed ability to self-assemble in water and to gives columnar structures similar to four-stranded helices; for compound (5′→5′)-d(GpG), this leads to the formation of cholesteric and hexagonal liquid crystalline phases. Both phases are columnar and the cholesteric phase is left-handed. This behaviour is a further confirmation of the tendency of guanine derivatives to self-assemble to give stacked columnar structures whenever not impossible for structural reasons. The CD spectra of the aggregates in isotropic solutions are dominated by a negative exciton couplet centred around 250 nm associated to a left-handed columnar chirality. The shapes of the profiles, in the 220-300-nm region, for (5′→5′)-d(GpG) (in water or in saline solutions) and for (3′→3′)-d(GpG) (in KCl solution) are quasi-mirror images of those of poly(G) and (3′→5′)-d(GpG). The appearance of relatively intense CD signals around 280-300 nm in solution of (3′→3′)-d(GpG) in the presence of NaCl resembles that of (3′→5′)-d(GpG) in the presence of Rb+ or Na+. In the compounds investigated in this work, which present two equivalent ends, one observes the two CD features that have been associated, in the current literature, with the signature of four-stranded parallel and antiparallel structures: hence the origin of these CD bands cannot be found in the polarity of the strands. Self-assembly is favoured by the addition of extra salt and the stabilising effect of K+ is greater than that of Na+, in the case of (3′→3′)-d(GpG), an assembled species could be detected by CD only in the presence of extra salt. Chirality 10:734-741, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Additional Material:
6 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
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