Light-responsive rotaxane-based materials: inducing motion in the solid state

• Adrian Saura-Sanmartin

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 873–880, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.64

• . Flipping motions were induced enhancing the irradiation power to 12 mW. Noteworthy, these crystals showed a 9600 times higher weight ratio than its crystal weight due to the bending and expansion experienced by these crystalline molecular materials. These nanomachines are useful in the development of small

Tetrathiafulvalene – a redox-switchable building block to control motion in mechanically interlocked molecules

• Hendrik V. Schröder and
• Christoph A. Schalley

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2018, 14, 2163–2185, doi:10.3762/bjoc.14.190

• gradients control repetitive motions of these biological nanomachines, researchers have been seeking for synthetic analogues, i.e., artificial molecular machines (AMMs), with the ultimate goal to convert energy into directional mechanical motion on the nanoscale [4][5][6]. The field of AMMs beautifully

From chemical metabolism to life: the origin of the genetic coding process

• Antoine Danchin

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 1119–1135, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.111

• nucleotides (transcription), followed by a machinery that operates in a way quite similar to that reading the tape of the Turing machine (translation). Nanomachines, the ribosomes, read contiguous (not overlapping) triplets of nucleotides (codons) in succession. To this aim they use specific transfer RNAs

Control over molecular motion using the cis–trans photoisomerization of the azo group

• Estíbaliz Merino and
• María Ribagorda

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2012, 8, 1071–1090, doi:10.3762/bjoc.8.119

• external stimuli. Keywords: azobenzenes; molecular switches; nanomachines; photoisomerization; Review This review is based on an article published in 2009 in Anales de Química (Real Sociedad Española de Química) [1]. Azobenzene was described for the first time in 1834 [2] and one century later, in 1937

Diarylethene-modified nucleotides for switching optical properties in DNA

• Sebastian Barrois and
• Hans-Achim Wagenknecht

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2012, 8, 905–914, doi:10.3762/bjoc.8.103

• polymerase reaction [18], photocontrol DNA triplex formation [19], and drive photon-fueled DNA-based nanomachines [20][21]. Concerning the extent of structural change, the cis–trans isomerization of azobenzenes behaves much simpler than the ring opening of spiropyrans to merocyanines. In the latter case not