title: Synthetic mimics of biotin/(strept)avidin.
abstract: Biotin/(strept)avidin self-assembly is a powerful platform for nanoscale fabrication and capture with many different applications in science, medicine, and nanotechnology. However, biotin/(strept)avidin self-assembly has several well-recognized drawbacks that limit performance in certain technical areas and there is a need for synthetic mimics that can either become superior replacements or operational partners with bio-orthogonal recognition properties. The goal of this tutorial review is to describe the recent progress in making high affinity synthetic association partners that operate in water or biological media. The review starts with a background summary of biotin/(strept)avidin self-assembly and the current design rules for creating synthetic mimics. A series of case studies are presented that describe recent success using synthetic derivatives of cyclodextrins, cucurbiturils, and various organic cyclophanes such as calixarenes, deep cavitands, pillararenes, and tetralactams. In some cases, two complementary partners associate to produce a nanoscale complex and in other cases a ditopic host molecule is used to link two partners. The article concludes with a short discussion of future directions and likely challenges.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, 236 Nieuwland Science Hall, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA. smith.115@nd.edu.
authors.forename: Wenqi
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Soumen K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Samanta
authors.forename: Bradley D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Lyle
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Isaacs
mesh_terms: D001360:Avidin / Q000737:chemistry*; D001710:Biotin / Q000737:chemistry*; D047250:Calixarenes / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry; D003505:Cyclodextrins / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D047028:Macrocyclic Compounds / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry; D019809:Streptavidin / Q000737:chemistry*; D000099246:Cucurbit(n)urils
chemical_list: D001360:Avidin; D001710:Biotin; D047250:Calixarenes; D003505:Cyclodextrins; D047028:Macrocyclic Compounds; D019809:Streptavidin; D000099246:Cucurbit(n)urils