Host-guest chemistry artificial receptors

Similar to calix[n]arenes, porphyrins have been known to be one of the support pillars of supramolecular chemistry attributing suitable photoactive and electroactive properties to the molecular structures designed around them for building artificial molecular devices. Thus, various metallated and free base porphyrin-calixarene assemblies could afford attractive scaffolds for application in the areas of multipoint molecular recognition, receptors, host-guest chemistry, catalysis and photoinduced electron transfers. 

It is also important to establish that the chemistry of molecular bioprobes is not a sub-discipline of molecular recognition [i.e. host-guest chemistry [4] (Fig. 7.1) in which a guest molecule binds in an artificial receptor site (the host ) which through selective interactions provides the recognition effect] rather, it is an application of molecular recognition. 

Studies on molecular recognition by artificial receptors are thus one of the most important approaches to such characterization in relation to supramolecular chemistry [4]. Functional simulation of intracellular receptors in aqueous media has been actively carried out with attention to various noncovalent host-guest interactions, such as hydrophobic, electrostatic, hydrogen-bonding, charge-transfer, and van der Waals modes [5-10]. On the other hand, molecular recognition by artificial cell-surface receptors embedded in supramolecular assemblies has been scarcely studied up to the present time, except for channel-linked receptors [11-13]. 

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