Chemistry - A European Journal

Cover Picture

The cover picture shows a space-filling representation of the crystal structure of a highly intertwined inorganic architecture obtained by enforced self-assembly from a multisubunit ligand and suitable metal ions. The binding information encoded in this molecular strand is expected to generate, in a strictly predetermined and univocal fashion, two different, well-defined output architectures depending on the set of metal ions used, that is, on the coordination algorithm put into operation. The structure shown is obtained with 8 Cu^II and 4 Cu^I ions (all in orange) per ligand molecule (each in a single color: green, blue, red, and yellow). It results from a crossover of the two assembly subprograms contained in the ligand. Another architecture is formed with the same ligand but with another set of metal ions. The results indicate that the same molecular information may yield different output structures depending on how it is processed through the interactional algorithm. Such multiple processing/expression of molecular information has intriguing implications of significance for chemical information processing in artificial as well as biological systems. This work is described in detail by J.-M. Lehn et al. on p. 2103 ff. The implications and perspectives offered are discussed more extensively together with other related studies by J.-M. Lehn on p. 2097 ff.

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