Foldamers provide an attractive medium to test the mechanisms by which biological macromolecules fold into complex three-dimensional structures, and ultimately to design novel protein-like architectures with properties unprecedented in nature. Here, we describe a large cage-like structure formed from an amphiphilic arylamide foldamer crystallized from aqueous solution. Forty eight copies of the foldamer assemble into a 5 nm cage-like structure, an omnitruncated octahedron filled with well-ordered ice-like water molecules. The assembly is stabilised by a mix of arylamide stacking interaction, hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic forces. The omnitruncated octahedra tessellate to form a cubic crystal. These findings provide an important step towards the design of framework nanostructures in aqueous environments.

Crystal structure of an amphiphilic foldamer reveals a 48-mer assembly comprising a hollow truncated octahedron

248th National Meeting (2014)

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