Artificial polymerases

The development of synthetic catalysts that has parallel enzymatic efficiency in terms of rate and turnover is still a challenge in chemistry. The de novo design of a biochemical system in a molecular matrix is fascinating and challenging for future synthetic catalysis. We recently used a non-covalent interaction approach to create nano-sized artificial enzymes for the size, shape, stereo, and enantio-selective synthesis of small molecules and polymers.

 

These biomimetic systems not only provide fresh insight into elucidating the catalytic mechanism of natural enzymes but also demonstrate the underlying principles in structure-based catalysis. The newly discovered chiral catalytic host can move along polymer chains in a single direction like natural enzymes, polymerases, and ribosomes. Such synthetic catalytic machines could be used for the synthesis of sequence-controlled polymers as well as for data storage.