Bile-acid-derived macrocycles

Figure 38 A bile-acid-derived macrocycle with amino acid linkers [55]...

The synthesis of the two bile-acid-derived macrocycles shown in Figure 39 were recently reported by us [56]. Even though Corey-Pauling-Koltun (CPK) models showed that the cavities in these two compounds would be able to encapsulate monocyclic aromatic compounds, detailed binding studies carried out in organic solvents with a variety of aromatic compounds did not show any evidence for appreciable binding. There is clearly scope for design improvement to overcome this problem since the construction of this type of macrocycle is synthetically rather flexible. 

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