Specifying non-covalent interactions: Sequence-specific assembly of hydrogen-bonded molecular duplexes

The recombination of amide O and H atoms, the simplest hydrogen bond donors and accepters, has lead to the sequence-specific formation of molecular duplexes from single molecular strands: of complementary H-bonding sequences. The sequences are programmable. The stability of the duplexes is adjustable by changing the number of H-bonding sites. Synthesis of these molecular strands involves standard amide/peptide chemistry. These molecular strands represent unnatural information-storing molecules that are being used as basic recognition units in designing a variety of supramolecular structures.