Structural water as an essential comonomer in supramolecular polymerization

Although the concept of structural water that is bound inside hydrophobic pockets and helps to stabilize protein structures is well established, water has rarely found a similar role in supramolecular polymers. Water is often used as a solvent for supramolecular polymerization, however without taking the role of a comonomer for the supramolecular polymer structure. We report a low-molecular weight monomer whose supramolecular polymerization is triggered by the incorporation of water. The presence of water molecules as comonomers is essential to the polymerization process. The supramolecular polymeric material exhibits strong adhesion to surfaces, such as glass and paper. It can be used as a water-activated glue, which can be released at higher temperatures and reused many times without losing its performance.

Functional materials discovery using energy-structure-function maps

Molecular crystals cannot be designed in the same manner as macroscopic objects, because they do not assemble according to simple, intuitive rules. Their structures result from the balance of many weak interactions, rather than from the strong and predictable bonding patterns found in metal-organic frameworks and covalent organic frameworks. Hence, design strategies that assume a topology or other structural blueprint will often fail. Here we combine computational crystal structure prediction and property prediction to build energy-structure-function maps that describe the possible structures and properties that are available to a candidate molecule. Using these maps, we identify a highly porous solid, which has the lowest density reported for a molecular crystal so far. Both the structure of the crystal and its physical properties, such as methane storage capacity and guest-molecule selectivity, are predicted using the molecular structure as the only input. More generally, energy-structure-function maps could be used to guide the experimental discovery of materials with any target function that can be calculated from predicted crystal structures, such as electronic structure or mechanical properties.

Human Ia beta chains and the invariant chain share a common antigenic determinant

We have presented evidence that a mouse monoclonal antibody 1,227, which was previously shown to recognize a determinant on the light chains beta 1 and beta 2 of human Ia antigens, also recognizes a determinant on the invariant chain (1) associated with these molecules. Ia-specific proteins were resolved by two-dimensional (2D) PAGE and electrophoretically transferred onto nitrocellulose filters. The presence of a determinant shared between beta 1, beta 2 and I was established using "Western blotting" technique. In addition, we demonstrated that 1,227 can immunoprecipitate isolated beta 1, beta 2, and the invariant chain proteins following their separate elution from SDS-PAGE.