Nucleotide-selective templated self-assembly of nanoreactors under dissipative conditions.
2020
Nature adopts complex chemical networks to finely tune biochemical processes. Indeed, small biomolecules play a key role in regulating the flux of metabolic pathways. Chemistry, which was traditionally focused on reactions in simple mixtures, is dedicating an increasing attention to the network reactivity of highly complex synthetic systems, able to display new kinetic phenomena. Here we show that the addition of monophosphate nucleosides to a mixture of amphiphiles and reagents leads to the selective templated formation of self-assembled structures, which can accelerate a reaction between two hydrophobic reactants. The correct matching between nucleotide and amphiphile's head group is fundamental for the selective formation of the assemblies and for the consequent upregulation of the chemical reaction. Transient stability of the nanoreactors is obtained under dissipative conditions, driven by enzymatic dephosphorylation of the templating nucleotides. These results show that small molecules can play a key role in modulating network reactivity, by selectively templating self-assembled structures that are able to upregulate chemical reaction pathways.
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