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Frontispiece: Macromolecular Isomerism in Giant Molecules
Author(s) -
Shao Yu,
Yang Shuguang,
Zhang WenBin
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.202081461
Subject(s) - molecule , macromolecule , ideal (ethics) , structural isomer , character (mathematics) , sequence (biology) , chemistry , nanotechnology , materials science , stereochemistry , philosophy , epistemology , organic chemistry , biochemistry , geometry , mathematics
The Chinese character shòu (寿, or longevity) can be written in more than 100 different ways, which is reminescent of the isomerism phenomena in the molecular world. Compared with small molecules, macromolecular isomerism has been largely understudied. Owing to their precise structures, giant molecules built on molecular nanoparticles provide an ideal platform for such studies. This Concept article summarizes the relevant work in this direction. Three major distinct categories of giant molecular isomers, namely sequence‐isomers, topo‐isomers, and regio‐isomers, are discussed in detail. The results show that the self‐assembly of giant molecules is highly sensitive to their primary structures and suggest that isomerism may be exploited as a new way for fine‐tuning the structures and properties of macromolecules. For more information, see the Concept by W.‐B. Zhang et al. on page 2985 ff.